First Grade Math Coin Sorting

We have been working with my Princess on her money sorting and counting.  Now with my eldest, we had all this play money for this purpose and a workbook, but we decided to skip all that with her and go for the real thing.  I have a little basket where I throw spare change, so we dug that out and just set to work in a very hands on manner.  I had her sit at the table and spread a bunch of change in front of her.  We talked about the different coins and what they are worth last year so we started with some review.  I showed her each coin, and told her the name of it and what it was worth.  Then I had her hand me random coins and tell me what they were worth.  Next we took a pile and made a sort of graph on the wipe of board and I had her sort out the coins by what they are worth and compare amounts.  We repeated these activities for a week, and then moved on to counting money.  So far she is doing good with the counting dimes by tens and we haven't moved on to nickles by fives but that is our next goal.  Right now she can count the dimes and pennies together fairly well.  Yay!  I am really enjoying working with the actual coins with her rather than pictures of coins or paper punch-out ones.

I really should take a picture of little guy too!  He loves attempting to sort the coins with her, and can sort the pennies out from the silver colored coins.