A pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is what we imagine a Leprechaun will leave for us on St. Patrick’s Day.  Since I’ve been alive, that has never happened for me…so I decided it was time to make our own pot of gold.  I thought it would be a fun and appropriate time to teach my girls more about the value of coins along with practicing our addition.  This activity is great because it can be modified to work for kids age 3-7 or older depending on your child.

Making the Pots and Coins

Supplies:

• brown card stock for pots
  
• envelopes
• free printable labels printed on card stock
• ruler
• cutting board
• exacto knife or coupon slicer (not sure of it’s exact name  :-))
• pen
• scissors
• glue
• 1″ gold coins cut out of card stock
• coins – quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies

Begin by making a bowl shape pot out of the brown card stock that will fit on the envelope.  I  made four different pots so that I would have one for each coin.  Before gluing the pot on the envelope you will want to cut two slits in the middle to be able to stick the tabs in.  To make the tabs fit perfectly make two one inch slits 1 1/2 inches apart.  Make sure you don’t put glue where the slits are or it will be a little tricky to get the tabs in.  :-)

To make a place for the coin inside the pot, seal the envelope then cut an opening in the top with scissors.

Print and cut the tabs and write the desired amount of cents on each one.  For my 4 year old I wrote just the coin value so she could just match them up.  To make it more challenging for my 6 1/2 year old I wrote numbers like 12¢, 50¢, 36¢, 64¢…

click, right click, save to computer, then print.

Either make a bunch of one inch coins or gather all your spare change.  I did both because I have two girls  at different levels.  To make it quick, use a one inch circle punch.  On each coin write 1¢, 5¢, 10¢, or 25¢.

For my four year old this was a great activity for number recognition.  She would take the coin and match it up with the pot before putting them in.  She had a lot of fun putting each coin in the pot.

For my 6 1/2 year old, this activity was perfect with real coins since she has been learning about money in school.  When we started she said she didn’t really know all the coins very well, but she did great!  It was great addition and coin value practice.  When we ran out of real coins, she used the gold coins that we had made as well.

I hope you have fun with this activity!  It is fun that it can be modified for any age to help with math and money value.

Aubrey

Tagged as: Activities With Free Printables, counting, number recognition, St. Patrick's Day, teaching kids about money