Public School Success

When my oldest son Jackson was a kid he loved money. Ok, he still does -who doesn’t. One day I took him to the store to spend the money he had earned, and he was busy looking at the prices on all the toys. An older woman watched him scrutinize the prices on each toy and then said to him, “You are really good with your numbers.” He replied “Yeah, because my mom lets me have whatever toy I want.” In the pause that followed I almost jumped in to disagree with him. I was so worried that this lady would think I was spoiling my kid, but then he finished his sentence. “Yeah, all I have to do is work really hard and save up all my money. “Whew, I guess I did let him have whatever he wanted.” I believe in paying my kids for the work they do because it is a way to teach them financial responsibility, but one of the best side effects is that it also helps them with their math skills.

Many of my listeners have already worked on helping their kids count to 20 in preparation for kindergarten. But what if you didn’t? Does that make you a bad parent? I worried so much as a young mom about doing everything right. Parenting is an impossible task, really. When my first set of kids was little, there was a big push to put an end to the strategies our parents used and not spank our kids. Instead, the correct thing to do was to put them in time out. My mother-in-law used to get annoyed at my “soft” parenting strategies and tell me that Jackson just needed a good spanking. Now I find myself having similar judgemental thoughts about people’s “gentle parenting” techniques. I try to stop judging as soon as the thought appears. You just have to remind yourself that there is no “right way” to parent, just a lot of different wrong ways. So just do your best and don’t stress. If you didn’t teach your kid to count to twenty, no worries. There’s no time like the present.

Meet Them Where They Are

Now let’s dive in. One important goal in public school is to help kids learn to count to 100 by the end of kindergarten. You might remember from season one that learning numbers has four steps, learning to say the numbers in order, learning the quantity of those number words, learning to read the numbers and learning to write them. The most important one to teach at home is understanding the quantity. They just aren’t going to get enough practice at school for this crucial concept. If you have been working on counting 20 things and it’s now easy for your child, then they are ready to learn to count to 100. If your child isn’t there yet, keep working on it until they are good at it before moving on. It is not a race, and having your kid be ahead of all the other kids doesn’t make you a better parent and if they are behind, you are not a worse parent. Just start where they are at. The teacher doesn’t have the luxury of giving this kind of personalized attention, but you do.

Counting Money For Chores

One of my favorite ways to work on counting is to use money. I started giving my kids money for their chores really early. They were always very excited to buy stuff with her money. Those coins got counted so many times. We counted her allowance when I paid her. Then again, when I paid her more, we would count how much she had in her piggy bank and then again at the store when she paid for her items. Allowance was great counting practice. 

You can count any object really, but one of the great things about money is that coins can help kids understand the base ten system. When my kids first started earning money, I always used pennies. We were kind of poor so dollars weren’t in the budget, but I could afford to pay them pennies. So if you don’t have change lying around- many people use credit cards these days- stop at the bank and pick up ten rolls of pennies for five bucks. 

Pennies and the Number of the Day

If your child is already very good at counting to twenty, you could help them move on by upping their pay for their daily chores. You can focus on one number of the day to help them learn past twenty. Start by giving them 21 pennies and count them with them. The next day they could earn 22 pennies and so on. Eventually they will get to 100 pennies. If your child is highly sensitive, you should warn them that the pay for chores will change from day to day, but they will always get at least 25 cents. Kids like to know what to expect. Let’s talk about some mistakes they will probably make. Some kids will have a mental block on specific numbers, Evelynn always forgot 15 it’s normal. Others will skip random numbers and that’s normal too. But one of the hardest things about counting is knowing what number comes after the nines. Even strong counters need to think a little extra. You can hear them doing the extra cognitive work it involves because they drag it out extra long to give themselves time “twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty niiiiiiiiine. Thirty”. Let’s be honest, I still do this sometimes. They will often make a mistake after a nine. If they, just gently say the correct number and they will be prompted to fix it. The more they practice the easier counting will get. 

Counting On from Random Numbers

After they get good at counting 100 pennies, you can start helping them learn to add yesterday’s earnings to today’s. One way I like to mix things up is to add a bit of random chance to their earnings. I say “I will give you one handful of pennies to clean your room. This will vary the amount they earn and it makes it more exciting. They will try really hard to clutch as many pennies from the jar as possible with their one little hand. But don’t worry, they won’t be able to get enough to break your bank. I did some experiments with Yogi and Javi the other day and they each was able to grab around 35 coins and they are in second and third grade. A kindergartener’s hands are even smaller.

Paying allowance in random numbers of coins also helps you learn the skill of counting on. The actual kindergarten standard says, “Count forward beginning from a given number within the known sequence (instead of having to begin at 1).  Instead of recounting the pennies they earned yesterday and continuing on with today’s, you could help them write what they counted yesterday and then start with that number to add their current earnings. For example, if they got 34 pennies yesterday they would say 34 and then as they touch the first penny of today they would say 35 instead of one. This counting on is a tough thing to learn. They practice it at school, but not enough to get really good at it. However, this lays the foundation for later math skills, such as addition and subtraction. It’s really a good idea to set up a time once a week to take them to the store to spend their money. This helps them stay excited about earning it. Although to be honest, my kids didn’t really have a choice. They had to do their chores even if they didn’t want to; the money was just a bonus. But counting and spending money really helps reinforce what math educators call “cardinality” meaning that they aren’t just saying the number words in order, they are connecting each word to a specific quantity. One quick tip, if your child seems to be making counting errors like double counting pennies or skipping some, it really helps if you arrange the coins in a line, or if you don’t have space, several lines. This visually helps them see what they have and haven’t counted. Many kids will naturally develop the habit of moving the pennies they have counted to a different area than the ones they haven’t counted. The kindergarten standards say that they should be able to count up to ten objects in a scattered configuration and up to twenty in a line or an array. With money your child will soon learn to go beyond that. Especially if you do this with them often. The more they count actual objects, like pennies, the easier it gets for them and the more naturally math at school will come to them.

Skip Counting By Tens with Dimes

The next part of the math standard that money can help your child learn is called skip counting. The standard says that kids need to learn to count to 100 by tens and ones. So basically 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80,90, 100. When your kid is really good at counting to 100 by ones, you can introduce dimes. Tell them that dimes help you count faster. Have them make a pile of ten pennies and teach them that one dime is worth the same amount of money as ten pennies. At first you will want to pay them in pennies and then trade them each pile of ten pennies for a dime. This will teach them to compare numbers and reinforce the idea of equivalence. Actually, this is another kindergarten standard. It says” Identify whether the number of objects in one group is greater than, less than, or equal to the number of objects in another group, e.g., by using matching and counting strategies. Trading piles of pennies for dimes brings up important conversations about quantity comparisons. You might say “ooops there are only 9 in this one “Is that more or less than ten.” Should we put one more penny in or take one out?” Trading piles of pennies for dimes will save them time at the checkout counter as well. After a few months of trading pennies for dimes, you can think about trading ten dimes for a dollar bill. After a few more months you might introduce nickels, but the standard is counting by tens so don’t go overboard. These concepts take a lot of effort to learn at first and it is best to go slow and not overwhelm your child.

Don’t Be Worried

Are you a little worried about doing this? I’ll admit that it can be time consuming. It can also be embarrassing when your child is slowly counting money at the checkout counter. I have never had a customer or cashier get upset. They usually think it is cute. But for good measure I try to go when it’s not busy so we don’t annoy hurried customers. 

Are you worried that this is going to cost you a lot of money? I get it, groceries and housing and everything is so expensive these days. But I think this money thing might save you money. Once, my husband started a new job, and it took three months before he actually got a paycheck. I had to really cut back because our savings were really limited. So one day I divided my groceries into two piles on the conveyor belt.  One pile was for necessities like eggs, oatmeal, carrots, peanut butter. The other pile was for treats like goldfish crackers and sugary cereals that my kids like. Guess which pile was more expensive, yep the treats. So I just didn’t buy them treats. We couldn’t afford it. But I did let them get treats with their own money. My in-laws graciously lent us money so we could do this. You would be amazed at how much cheaper it is to make kids buy their own treats with money they earn themselves. Your kids will learn to distinguish needs from wants and they won’t pressure you to buy them things. I remember once I was checking out at the grocery store and Evelynn came up behind me carrying a doll she was planning on buying. I said “hmmm I didn’t know you were into dolls, you usually buy stuffed animals.” She said “I don’t really like dolls that much, but Ellery likes them and we play at her house. She has American Girl Dolls but those cost like $100 and this one looks almost the same and it only costs $20.” That knock of American Girl doll lived at her friend Ellerie’s house, it’s probably still there. Ten years later Evelynn is still pretty wise financially. She is going to homecoming this weekend in a beautiful dress she found at the thrift store for ten bucks. It is so cute that some of her other friends were inspired to go thrift store shopping and they are also sporting pre-loved gowns to the dance. So ultimately, paying my kids for the work they do around the house saves me WAY more money than it ever cost me.

But financial understanding aside, The kindergarten point of this exercise is to practice counting every day. At school they will be learning to count, but practicing at home you are helping them understand what the numbers represent.  32 is not just a word, it is an amount of pennies. They will also start to understand why counting is important, because counting will help them buy the things they want. More importantly, you are spending quality time with your child and that is what really matters.