1. Coin Box
Learn how to count, collect,
exchange, and make change
for coins. The coin tiles help
you count as you learn the
value of each coin. How many
of the games can you master?
http://illuminations.nctm.org/Act
ivityDetail.aspx?ID=217
Reviewed by Antoinette Volley
and Maria Hernandez
2. How the applet works…
There are five different activities for students to engage in with this applet:
Count, Collect, Exchange, Change from Coins, and Change from Value.
Each is designed to support students understanding of money ideas, such
as coin recognition and identifying their values, counting sets of coins, and
making change up to $1.
In Count, students identify the value of coins shown in the coin box.
In Collect, students collect __cents with quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies.
In Exchange, students exchange for the fewest coins,
In Change from Coins, students ask themselves “How much change for $1.00?”
In Change from Value, students owe __cents and give $1. Students must compute the
change they will receive.
If students are encouraged to also record number sentences to go along
with their work on Collect they make stronger connections between their
models and the computations they represent.
3. Analysis
Strengths Weaknesses
Interactive. Too many directions.
A variety of difficult levels. User must be able to read in
Great integration of money English in order to play with
concepts and hundreds grid. the applet.
Differentiation-Help button Limited to making change up
shows the value of each coin to $1.
in the active workspace for When your answer is incorrect
students who are struggling it only tells you to try again, no
with coin worth and coin help is given to correct your
recognition. thinking error.
Appeals to Multiple User can not track their
Intelligences-Linguistic, progress and/or errors.
Logical, and Visual.
4. Evaluation of Applet
Applet can be access from the illuminations
website. It is free and accessible online.
The applet does not provide any form of
assessment.
The applet provides five type of games: Count,
Collect, Exchange, Change from Coins, and
Change from Value to help students develop a
conceptual understanding of money.
The applet focus is on “Purchase Power”– a
quarter can buy the same thing that 25 pennies
can buy.
5. A Problem-Based Task
Task:
Play Collect. How many different ways can you collect
__cents? Record each different combination on paper? Tell
a story for one or more combinations?
Connection to standards and/or big ideas:
CCSS- Solve word problems involving dollar bills,
quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies, using $ and ¢
symbols appropriately.
Big Idea- Measurement involves a comparison of an
attribute of an item or situation with a unit that has the
same attribute.
6. Questions to Ask to Access and
Advance Student Thinking
Launch (Task Set-Up):
How many different ways can you collect __ cents?
What are some examples?
Explore (During Task Implementation):
How can you use the model to solve the answer?
Have you thought of all the possibilities?
Summarize (As students share findings, strategies,
reasoning, etc.):
What did you find difficult about this activity?
What have you learned or found out today?
Does your answer seem reasonable? Why or why not?
