Money - Working with Money Activity - Planning

In the second week of the summer term for Year 4, students will engage in a practical lesson focused on working with money. The lesson aims to provide real-life context to the use of addition, subtraction, and some division through the handling of coins and notes. The children will learn to calculate different amounts of money and understand the concept of exchanging coins to facilitate easier calculations. A variety of resources such as a presentation, physical currency, and mini whiteboards or paper are employed to assist in solving monetary problems. Key vocabulary for this lesson includes terms like 'change', 'add', 'more', 'total', 'exchange', and 'altogether'. The lesson begins with a review of previous learning and a 'Fluent in Four' questions activity to warm up the students' numerical skills.

The class teaching input starts with a discussion to recall the different coins used in the currency, followed by a series of activities that progressively build on the students' understanding of working with money. In Activity 1, the focus is on addition, where students work together to solve problems and learn the importance of organizing coins by value. Subsequent activities cover subtraction, finding differences using a number line, and division, where students tackle real-world scenarios such as sharing the cost of items among a group. The lesson culminates in an independent task where students create their own monetary problems for their peers to solve. This exercise is differentiated to cater to various levels of proficiency, from 'Working Towards' to 'Greater Depth', with the expectation that students will formulate and solve problems that increase in complexity and demonstrate their working out process. Throughout the lesson, key questions prompt students to reflect on their learning, and a 'Give me five' activity encourages them to consider what they have learned, the skills they used, and what they found challenging, ensuring they retain the essential concepts from the day's lesson.