Pocket Riddles - Coins in Math Class

Flea Market Math has become a verrrrry popular math tradition in the first and second grade classrooms. It is the culminating event or project for the children after weeks of learning all about money. For beginners, this can mean learning coin values and making easy exchanges. For children who are in my math group, my goal is for students to become adept at counting piles of change, making change from a dollar, using proper dollar notation, and being able to add and subtract money amounts (lining up with the decimal point).

Right now, we are thinking that our annual Flea Market will be held on the day before Spring Break, which gives us quite a few weeks to hone our skills. Here is one great activity we did on Tuesday that can easily be done at home for practice – and the best part is that it can be easily modified for your child’s skill level.

I started with a riddle written on a card. The riddle was on one side, and the answer was on the other. The actual coins were in my change purse, and the students had a pile of coins on the rug that they could work with. The riddle stated:

I hold 4 coins. They total 61 cents. What coins do I have?

Right away, I got a sense of who needed support. Some children needed reminders of what the value of each coin was. A couple immediately gave up and deemed this challenge “Impossible.” At least one knew that one penny was needed since the amount ended in a 1, which was a big clue. This was tricky! Working together, we came up with the answer – Q, Q, D, P

I then tried a slightly easier one, to boost confidence.

I hold 3 coins. They total 27 cents. What coins to I have?

This one everyone was able to do, and was excited to try their hand at making their own riddles! At the end of math class, we worked together to solve them – some were super challenging!

Here are some riddles to get you started for some home practice:

I hold 5 coins. They total 76 cents. What coins do I have?
There are 4 coins. The coins total 30 cents. What coins do I have?
There are 4 coins. They total 60 cents. What coins do I have?
There are 3 coins. The coins total 35 cents. What coins do I have?
I hold 5 coins. They total 95 cents. What coins do I have?

For beginners, it would help to have an assortment of coins to manipulate. For more experienced workers, a good challenge would be to have them work it out in their heads. Have fun!