Methods Teaching Money Counting Skills

Counting money is a critical functional skill for all students. For children with learning disabilities but average intelligence, money not only gives them access to things they want to purchase, but it also builds a foundation for understanding the base ten systems of numeration. This will help with them learn decimals, percents, the metric system, and other skills that are vital for science, technology, and the social sciences.

For students with intellectual disabilities and lower functionality, counting money is one of the skills they will need for self-determination and for the opportunity to live independently in the community. Like all skills, counting and using money needs to be scaffolded, building on strengths and teaching the "baby steps" that will lead to independence.

Coin Recognition

Before students can count coins, they have to be able to correctly identify the most common denominations: pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. For low-function students, this may be a long but worthwhile process. Do not use fake plastic coins for low-functioning students with intellectual or developmental disabilities. They need to generalize coin use to the real world, and the plastic coins do not feel, smell, or even look like the real thing. Depending on the student's level, approaches include:

• Discrete trial training: Present only two coins at a time. Ask and reinforce correct responses, i.e. "Give me a penny," "Give me a nickel," "Give me a penny," etc.
• Use errorless teaching: Point to the correct coin if the student picks up the wrong coin or seems to waffle. Collect data and don't introduce a new coin until the child is at least 80 percent accuracy.
• Coin sorting: After the child has succeeded with discrete trial training, or if the child quickly seems to be distinguishing the coins, you can give them practice by sorting coins. Place a cup for each denomination, and place the mixed coins on the table in front of the child. If the child recognizes numbers, put the coin value on the outside of the cup, or place one of the coins in the cup.
• Matching coins: A variation of sorting coins is to match them to the values on a cardstock mat. You could add a picture if it helps.

Counting Coins

The goal is to help your students learn to count coins. Counting money requires understanding the base ten math system and strong skip counting skills. Activities with a hundred chart will help build these skills. The hundred chart can also be used to help teach counting money as well.

Money should begin with a single denomination, ideally pennies. Counting pennies could easily accompany learning to count, as well as introducing the cents sign. Then, move on to nickels and dimes, followed by quarters.

• Number lines and hundred chart: Make paper number lines to one hundred or hundred charts. When counting nickels, have the students highlight the fives and write the fives (if they are not on the number line). Give students nickels and have them place the nickels on the fives and recite out loud. Placing the coins and reciting out loud make this a multi-sensory unit. Do the same with counting dimes.
• Giant number line: This activity ramps up the multisensory element of money and skip counting. Paint a giant number line (or get parent volunteers) on a paved portion of the playground or school courtyard, with the numbers one foot apart. Have individual children walk the number line and count the nickels, or get giant nickels from a bulletin board set and have different students stand at different points to count off by fives.
• Coin templates: Create counting templates by cutting out facsimile coins and pasting them on five-inch by eight-inch file cards (or any size you find most manageable). Write the value on the card (front for low-functioning children, on the back as a self-correcting activity). Give students nickels, dimes, or quarters and have them count them out. This is an especially useful technique for teaching quarters. You need only make one card with four quarters and the numbers 25, 50, 75, and 100. They can count multiple quarters in rows.

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What Is Tibetan Silver?

Tibetan Silver is the name given to the metal used in some jewelry available online, such as on eBay or via Amazon. These items typically ship from China. Have you ever wondered how much silver is in Tibetan Silver or about the chemical composition of Tibetan Silver? Would you be surprised to learn that this metal can be dangerous?

Tibetan Silver is a silver-colored alloy consisting of copper with tin or nickel. Some items described as Tibetan Silver are cast iron that has been plated with the silver-colored metal. Most Tibetan Silver is copper with tin rather than copper with nickel because nickel causes skin reactions in many people.

Health Hazards

Ironically, the metal often contains other elements that are much more toxic than nickel. It is inadvisable for pregnant women or children to wear items made with Tibetan Silver because some of the items contain high levels of dangerous metals, including lead and arsenic.

eBay issued a buyer warning so that bidders would be aware of the metallurgical testing conducted on Tibetan Silver items and the possible toxicity of these items. In six of seven items that were analyzed using x-ray fluorescence, the primary metals in the Tibetan Silver were actually nickel, copper, and zinc. One item contained 1.3% arsenic and extremely high lead content of 54%. A separate sampling of items revealed comparable compositions, with trace amounts of chromium, aluminum, tin, gold, and lead, although in that study, all of the samples contained acceptable levels of lead.

Note that not all items contain toxic levels of heavy metals. The warning for pregnant women and children is intended to prevent accidental poisonings.

Other Names Tibetan Silver May Go By;

Sometimes comparable metallurgical compositions have been called Nepalese silver, white metal, pewter, lead-free pewter, base metal, or simply tin alloy.

In the past, there was an alloy called Tibetan Silver that actually did contain the element silver. Some vintage Tibetan silver is sterling silver, which is 92.5% silver. The remaining percent could be any combination of other metals, although usually, it is copper or tin.

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Why the Copper Penny Is Worth More Than One Cent

The prices of most commodities have risen substantially since the turn of the century, and some of the coins you have in your pocket or piggy bank are worth more today than in the past.

How much is a copper penny worth? 

Pennies used to be made from 95% copper, at least until 1982. United States Mint. "Copper Half-Cent and One-Cent Coin Legislation."Since 2000, the price of copper has risen dramatically, making the meltdown value of these pennies more than the face value of the coin. Commodity prices continue to rise and fall with market changes, which affect the current metal value of the penny. It's illegal to melt down 5-cent and one-cent U.S. coins. Investors hoping to gain from the future worth of the copper in their old pennies are counting on the penny eventually being discontinued as legal tender and the government allowing the copper coins to be sold for the value of their metal.

The Copper and Zinc in a Penny

A pre-1982 penny consists of 95% copper and 5% zinc. It contains about 2.95 grams of copper, and there are 453.59 grams in a pound.5 The price of copper on Dec. 10, 2019, was $2.75 a pound. Macrotrends. "Copper Prices - 45 Year Historical Chart." That meant the copper in each penny was worth about 1.7 cents. Thus, the meltdown value of a pre-1982 penny was about 70% more than the face value.

Beginning in 1982, pennies began to be manufactured out of zinc, amounting to 97.5% of the mass of the coin, with a thin copper coating that amounted to 2.5% of the penny's mass. Some pennies dated 1982 are of the almost-all-copper type, and some are the mostly zinc kind. You can tell them apart by weighing them if you have a sensitive scale: The majority-copper ones weigh 3.11 grams, and the majority-zinc ones weigh 2.5 grams.

The price of zinc has also increased since 2000, though it's down from a peak of $2.06 a pound in November 2006. As of Dec. 10, 2019, zinc was valued at $1.02 a pound. The 2.43 grams of zinc in a post-1982 penny was then worth six-tenths of a cent.

Buying Pennies

You can go to a bank or anywhere else that has large quantities of pennies and buy them at face value, but it can be time-consuming to sort through and isolate the mostly copper ones. Some companies sell bulk pennies that have already been sorted, but they will charge you a premium.

A Warning About Legality

Because of the increasing value of copper and other metals, in 2006, the U.S. government imposed a penalty for melting pennies or nickels: a fine of up to a $10,000 or up to five years in prison or both.3 For that reason, if you're thinking of buying up lots of copper pennies, you would have to consider it to be a long-term investment.

The U.S. Mint has entertained the thought of stopping penny production because of the high price of minting the coin but has yet to officially do so. Many other countries have already done away with their version of the penny. If and when the U.S. penny is abandoned, it is likely to become legal to melt the coins down for their copper content.

Collecting and Storing Pennies

Investors and collectors have already begun hoarding pennies. It will likely become more difficult to find pre-1982 pennies in the years to come, especially if the price of copper continues to move higher. One thousand dollars worth of pennies consists of 100,000 coins, and $10,000 is equal to 1 million pennies. If you decided to get your hands on such a large number of pennies, you might run into a storage issue.

On a smaller scale, there's nothing's wrong with sorting through spare change every week and putting the copper pennies in a container to save for the day when they could be worth a good deal more.

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