How to play Currency Bands
Are you looking for a novel way to explore fractions? Or perhaps you’re teaching money concepts to your students, but they’re struggling with equivalencies and values, we’ve got the virtual manipulative you need: money strips! Similar to fraction strips, money strips help students visualize how much money a quarter, ten cents, or one dollar represents when compared to another unit of money.
To use the money strips, click and drag the money strips onto the canvas. You can add as many of each unit as you’d like. To remove the strips, simply drag them off and release them. That’s it!
Here are a few fun ways to use money strips:
Have students model addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division problems using the money strips.
Ask students to find equivalences. For example, how many 5-cent strips fit in 1$? Or how many 5-cent strips fit in one 25-cent strip? If students are studying fractions, ask them to figure out the corresponding fraction.
Have students show a quantity such as 75 cents using one 50-cent strip and one 25-cent strip. Then, ask students to show an equivalent amount using different strips.
Invite children to play “store.” One student sets up a pretend store by adding prices to classroom items using post-it notes. The other students “pay” for items in the store by putting the correct amount of money strips on the canvas.
Want tips and strategies? Read the full How to Play Currency Bands guide.
