6 year old struggling with learning about money, any tips

[CharlieBoo]

My ds had parents evening last week and he is doing excellently in literacy, reading, writing, story telling etc, but his maths is not his strong point the teacher said. We knew this really as at home he looks at me all confused when we work out some sums.

The teacher mentioned that at the moment they are learning about money, different ways to make 10 and 20p and have turned theclassroom into a shop and given all the children some money to buy something. She said ds really struggled and needed one to one. She also said to practice at home so yesterday we got some coins out. He really really struggled with how to make 10p some different ways. We went through the coins lots and lots but I could tell it wasn't going in.

Any tips or will it just take time?

The best way will be to start giving him some pocket money in different coins, and let him spend it on stuff - a pound a week would give him lots of opportunities to choose from 'penny' sweets (great for working out the sums) etc

Thanks, thats what I said to dp last night... will try that this week, thanks.

My DS (4.7) had this game for Christmas. We've all played it lots and it's actually helped my 6 yr old DD more. She also struggles with coins/money.

Piggy in the Middle

what dibbler said and practice!!!

Also, what about these snap cards? Again I bought them for DD and although she finds it a bit tricky I do think it will help her.

UK Money Snap Cards

How is he with basic sums, without using money? Perhaps focus on getting him really sharp on adding and subtracting up to 10 and then up to 20 just using 'items' rather than confusing him with different coins which have different values. When he has confidence in this you can add the concept of item value.

In parallel he can practice identifying the different coins and saying their name, and then picking equivalent sets eg. a 2p is the same as 2 x 1p.

For the basic stuff you can work on:

• adding small numbers using fingers
• same with other items eg. toys, food, handling them to make it real & visual
• look for opportunities to do this in the real world
• pairs which make 10
• counting in twos
• counting backwards
• counting in tens

and build up from there. There is a lot we take for granted!

What year is he in? Could you ask the teacher what they've already covered and go back through it with him?

My feeling is that these things take time but the more you talk about numbers in lots of different contexts the more likely they are to
(a) pick up a 'way of thinking about it' which suits them, and
(b) see the need for it and persevere.

Good luck!

That reminded me that we played Pop to the shops at a friends house this weekend and it was quite good.

I'd also try going shopping in smaller shops using cash if you can so that you have opportunities to say 'right, we need two iced buns, they are 40p each etc' and get him to hand the money over

Yes DD likes those sort of sums. E.g Cakes are 20p each and you've got £1.00 in your purse. How many cakes can you buy? That sort of thing.

I agree with the pocket money idea. Also teach him to count how many pence each coin is worth by tapping it the appropriate number of times, so for example, if counting 2p pieces, he would count 1, 2, tapping first coin, then 3, 4 tapping second coin etc. Lots of children take a while to "get" the different value of coins because they don't relate to their size, eg 2p is bigger than 5p etc.

Thanks all so much for your replies. The teacher suggested playing schools at home which we did tonight. I think it's just going to take time. He was much better with the coins tonight than he was last night. We have pop to the shops but he needs to learn some basics first as he really found it hard when we played it. Thanks again.

There's a great white board thing you can get in WHS with magnetic coins and a marker pen. you write the amount in pen, and the child has to see how to make that amount in as few coins as possible etc. will try and find it on their website. costs about £19.

Ooh thanks that sounds good Wheels on The Bus...will look online now.

He has just turned 6 and is in year 1 btw.

DS same age as yours and hopeless at money. We give him a pound pocket money every week and he said that he has a scheme to get rich. It involves going to the corner shop and buying something then he'll get lots of change. To be really really rich, he'll just need to do much more shopping. BTW he's in top maths set doing Y2 work !!

DS (Y1) is 6 in April is not that great with money either, I think Maths isn't his strong side. He can not count in 10s, add up numbers to 10 but not much further. We give him £1 each week and he goes to the shops to buy sweets. He plays with the money, looses bits and has to re-count it lots of times (a good thing really).

It would be a good idea as a previous poster suggested to give him the money in smaller coins - will do that next week.