Family and Homeschool Activities: Making Change Under a Dollar

These family and homeschool activities are designed to complement the Making Change Under a Dollar topic on BrainPOP Jr.

Grocery Store

Go to the grocery store with your child and buy a small item, such as a piece of fruit. Then have your child pay with a dollar and calculate the change he or she should get back. You may want your child to write a subtraction sentence on a piece of paper. Be sure that your child counts the change and make sure it is correct. You may want to visit other stores to buy inexpensive items, such as a stamp from the post office or a newspaper from a newsstand.

Hide the Zeroes

Practice subtracting amounts that end in zero from $1.00. For example, subtract 100¢ – 20¢. Remind your child to hide the zeroes in the ones place and solve the subtraction sentence. What is 10¢ – 2¢? Then they can bring back the zeroes to solve: 100¢ – 20¢ = 80¢. How can you show 80¢ using the fewest number of coins possible? You child can use play money or real money to show his or her answer. Repeat the activity again using other number sentences, such as 100¢ – 40, 100¢ – 80¢, and 100¢ – 50¢.