Student Video: At The Pet Shop
Join us on a shopping spree in this fun, money-counting poetry video! At the Pet Shop, a child buys treats for her pets, paying with nickels and counting by fives—all the way to 100! Perfect for introducing skip counting, coin values, and poetic rhythm to young learners.
 | CATEGORY:Math | GRADE LEVEL:Primary |
DOWNLOADS:
ACTIVITIES:
Sorting Coins
Invite younger students to examine nickels and compare them to other coins. Encourage them to observe differences in size, color, weight, and images. Then, give students a mixed collection of coins to sort using muffin tins. This activity helps children recognize and categorize coins by attributes, laying the foundation for understanding value, counting, and money management. RealMoneyActivities
Abacus Math
Introduce your child to the abacus and show how each row of beads can represent groups of numbers. As they sing a song or chant while sliding beads in sets of five, they begin to visualize and internalize the pattern of counting by fives. This hands-on activity builds number sense, reinforces skip counting, and lays the groundwork for understanding multiplication. Abacus Math
Counting Nickels Worksheet
When students are comfortable counting by fives, have them practice recording larger quantities of nickel coins. Remind the student that some of the coins in each row will be upside down, and other coins will be face side up. Download Worksheet #2 free at Worksheets Pennies and Nickels
Pet Store: Dramatic Play
Set up a pet store-themed play area to spark imaginative fun and to practice math skills. Choose a few items and label them with a price on post its. If your child is practicing nickels, make all the prices a multiple of 5 and have them only pay with nickels. Use the same principle for dimes and quarters.
Hooray for Arrays!
Arrays are useful representations of multiplication concepts. A fun way to practice arrays and repeated addition is to paint them with cotton swabs. Have students paint the arrays into their grids in ROYGBIV order to make array rainbows! Visual learners will especially enjoy this math-art activity. Miss Giraffe's Class: Arrays
CRAFT:
My Little Pet Store Activity
Here's the purr-fect activity for little animal lovers! Children can draw their favorite pets and count the number of animals in the pet store. Or, enlarge template and give students animal stickers to place in the store windows. To download Doodle Lou's free PDF, click CRAFT tab.
