{Play Money: The Way to Learn}

My 7 year old has had old scraps of handwritten makeshift play money for a long time, and although it works, it could be better. When she's playing store, or paying her vet bill, or shopping at the pet store, she really should be counting out something close to real money. You know...playing and learning. It's how we roll around here, so I can't believe I haven't made these earlier. I think I printed out some generic bills a few years ago on green cardstock, but let's just say....uck. Not the ideal.

So I did some searching and found these wonderful printables at Money Instructor. You can download $1's, $5's, $10's, and $20's. They look very real, but are smaller in size than the real thing.

$1 Bills-Play Money

$5 Bills-Play Money

$10 Bills-Play Money

$20 Bills-Play Money

$50 Bills-Play Money
 I printed several copies of each on white cardstock and cut them out.
(I use Georgia-Pacific cardstock from Wal-mart for general projects.)

Then I sealed them up with clear laminate (from a roll) for durability, and cut them out again. Rolling over the laminate with a brayer (or rolling pin) really helps get the bubbles out quickly.

 They are durable and very authentic...perfect for learning while playing.

  Wouldn't it be nice if these were real?
Have fun pretend shopping (and counting) with your kiddos!

Take care,

Linking up at:

{Place Value Mats}

Howdy all! Hope you had a wonderful and relaxing Mother's Day doing something that makes you happy. Mine was delightful as always, thanks to my 2 faves and all the ways they make me feel special!

We've been working on place value 'round here, so I made up these reusable wipe-off mats for practice. My sweet girl has a ton of fun with them and grabs them whenever she has a free minute these days. I just call out a number, and she tries to write it correctly. We throw them in our "Out to Eat Bag" , too. I always have the WASHABLE(!) wipe-off markers around because I learned the hard way in my own classroom that the regular dry erase markers DO.NOT.COME.OFF. (eek.)

I made 2 of them...this one to 'thousands' place and another just to 'hundreds' place. Super simple and free.

I used 8.5x11 cardstock for the base, and free hand cut little houses out of scrap patterned paper. I added the words, lines, and doorknobs with a permanent marker, and the 'sun' was made with a paper punch. Then I laminated them with clear contact paper. We use a scrap of fleece for an eraser, and again, the washable dry-erase markers.

(This photo is awful, but you get the idea!)

It's GREAT practice, fun, reusable, portable, and most importantly really gets those place values lined up in the noggin. :) Prior to all of this, of course we've been using manipulatives for a very long time. We started number building a loooong time ago using our Base 10 Bean Sticks to build the number I called out:

Easily made with craft sticks, beans of choice, and Elmer's.  Our 'hundreds' aren't really beans, but a copy of 10 bean sticks.

Now our place value mats are helping a lot as we get more and more advanced. She thinks the houses are cute and anytime we can throw in some imagination to the game, it just makes it that much more beneficial to little brains. 

Hope you try one of these!

Have a great day,