Occupational Therapy Money Management Activities

occupational therapy money management

Occupational therapy money management activities are a functional task for all ages. One way that occupational therapy providers support clients is by targeting the areas of function and daily tasks that enable independence such as ADLs and IADLs. One area may be counting money. In this blog post, we’re covering teaching clients to manage money and count money.

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money management occupational therapy

Occupational Therapy Money Management Activities

We are plowing through second grade with my oldest kiddo and this Money series was perfect timing for supplementing what she’s learning at school.  

We’ve done a lot of second grade activities here based on what she’s been doing at school. While the beginning stages of money management is initiated in the second grade, this is a task that can be a challenge at all stages of development and across the lifespan.

Occupational therapy providers may support clients with aspects of money management:

  • identifying coins
  • manipulating coins
  • counting coins
  • managing dollar bills
  • making change for a purchase
  • counting coins and bills to make a purchase
  • managing a check book
  • budgeting
  • paying bills

Today, we practiced counting coins and making change with a hands-on activity with a little pretend shopping.  This was a fun way to practice counting money while working on fine motor skills, too.

We’ll also share other resources related to money management for occupational therapy.

Identifying Coins- One of the first steps to money management is to identify coins. Be sure to grab our count and color worksheet for more counting and fine motor tasks. In the activity, we target the fine motor skills needed to pick up and manipulate a coin in order to identify it and use it in counting money tasks.

Identifying coins and bills requires several skills:

 
Counting coins math for kids, including making change and fine motor skills with hands on coin counting math.

How to Teach Kids Money and Making Change

Using and counting coins is a functional task needed for Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADLs) such as shopping and purchasing necessary items for functional tasks. Because of this, an occupational therapy practitioner may work with clients on handling money. 

While the “teaching” aspect isn’t quite an OT domain when it comes to teaching bills and how to count, there is a very functional thread in this task. 

Counting money and handling bills and coins is a very functional task that requires underlying skill areas that occupational therapy providers often address in OT interventions:

This post contains affiliate links. 

Sort Coins Activity

For this activity, we used our play money set. (affiliate link) I love this set because it’s loaded with coins and bills.  It’s a great way to practice and learn money skills with hands-on learning.  

We started off by sorting out the coins (after a certain one year old dumped the whole set on the floor!) and it was a good warm up to name and practice counting coins as we put them back into the correct spots in the wooden storage box.

  1. Put all of the same coins into a pile.
  2. Count the number of each coin.
  3. Count by adding on to add up the amount of money in the pile.

Next, I found a few stacks of sticky notes (affiliate link) and wrote some amounts.  I varied the amounts from cents to several dollars.  Then, I grabbed a handful of pens (affiliate link) in different colors.  

This activity is very adaptable.  Use whatever you’ve got in the house, from pretend play food to real pantry items,  you can use any item for counting money and change.  Use items that keep your child interested. 

Teach Kids to Count Money

 

I matched up the items with different amounts written on the sticky notes.  

I had my daughter count out the coins, starting with the largest coin.  I asked her to tell me the number of each coin needed to get the amount, using the least amount of coins.

Counting coins math for kids, including making change and fine motor skills with hands on coin counting math.

 

Counting Coins Activity to Make Change

Next, I gave her a few play bills and a handful of coins.  I placed the price tags on each pen and asked her to buy the pen she wanted.  

She chose a pen and then counted out the coins needed.  Finally, we switched roles.  I gave her a bigger amount and asked her to count change, starting with the price of the pen until she reached the bill or coin amount.  


We practiced this game over and over again and got some great hands-on money practice, all with “buying” pens!  Using the play coins (and having a huge pile of money to “pay” with) really motivated her to keep practicing money counting. 

Counting coins math for kids, including making change and fine motor skills with hands on coin counting math.

 

Fine Motor Skills with Money

Manipulating coins requires fine motor skills. The fine motor dexterity and precision needed to manipulate coins can be a challenge for some individuals. In order to handle money, one needs the following fine motor skills: 

Counting coins math for kids, including making change and fine motor skills with hands on coin counting math.



Flip Coins for Fine Motor Work- We’ve shared how to use coins in fine motor skills before.  We used a few of those techniques today with our play money.  

Stack coins- Stack the coins for a pincer grasp and practice in precision as you and your child count out the coins.

Looking for more money activities?  Try these:

  • Create a budget
  • Write a check
  • Balance a checkbook
  • Count change for a product that is purchased in a store
  • Fill in forms such as bank forms and a checkbook

All of these forms are found inside our Membership Club for Level 2 members. Not a member yet? Join us today!

Counting coins math for kids, including making change and fine motor skills with hands on coin counting math.
 

 

occupational therapy activities to work on money management

Some common ways to work on the functional skill of money management in occupational therapy interventions include the ideas listed above.

There may be a fine line between the educational aspect and the “teaching” of managing money. Identifying coins, counting change, managing a budget may not exclusively fall under the role of occupational therapy. These are, however, IADLs and that IS a main role of OT.

Money management can be a collaborative process, particularly when there are considerations at play such as:

  • Dysgraphia
  • Dyscalculia
  • Visual perception needs
  • Fine motor challenges
  • Tactile defensiveness
  • Other considerations

Particularly in the outpatient setting, IADLs such as money skills can be addressed.

For situations where it is appropriate, some additional ideas for targeting money management as a pre-vocational skill with teens or adults:

  • Use real money to count and buy items
  • Print off fake money to work on money use
  • Identify coins and bills
  • Make change for $10 or $20
  • Play BINGO with coins
  • community outings with purchases
  • Use real menus to make pretend purchases with play money or real money

What are your favorite ways to support needs with money management?

Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.

Doubles and Near Doubles

doubles and near doubles craft

If you have a second grader, than you may be familiar with doubles and near doubles. This form of math facts with doubles numbers (adding two numbers that are the same) and near doubles (adding two numbers that are almost the same), can help kids quickly learn math facts with a brain trick. We created a spider activity that was a fun way to practice doubles and near doubles!

Adding Doubles and Near Doubles in Second Grade Math up to 20, with a hands-on math, spider theme.

What are Doubles and Near Doubles?

We explained this a bit, but let’s expand on these math definitions.

You might be thinking, “What!?” I have to admit, adding near doubles is a concept that I learned along with my oldest when she went through second grade.

What is Doubles and Near Doubles in Second grade math?  

Doubles are the addends that are exactly the same.  These are addition facts that second graders need to know to add within 20.

Near Doubles are those addends that are almost a double fact. So, 4+5 is very close to 4+4.  Students can easily recall that the double fact for 4+4=8 and by adding one more, they quickly know that 4+5=9.  These are math fact tools that can help second graders add within 20.

Doubles Math Facts

Doubles math facts include:

  • 0+0=0
  • 1+1=2
  • 2=2+4
  • 3+3=6
  • 4+4=8
  • 5+5=10
  • 6+6=12
  • 7+7=14
  • 8+8=16
  • 9+9=18
  • 10+10=20

Near Doubles Facts

Near doubles facts depend on the doubles that the numbers are near.

  • 0+0=0
    • 1+0=1
    • 0+1=1
  • 1+1=2
    • 2+1=3
    • 1+2=3
    • 0+1=1
    • 1+0=1
  • 2+2=4
    • 3+2=5
    • 2+3=5
    • 1+2=3
    • 2+1=3
  • 3+3=6
    • 4+3=7
    • 3+4=7
    • 2+3=5
    • 3+2=5
  • 4+4=8
    • 5+4=9
    • 4+5=9
    • 3+4=7
    • 4+3=7
  • 5+5=10
    • 6+5=11
    • 5+6=11
    • 4+5=9
    • 5+4=9
  • 6+6=12
    • 7+6=13
    • 6+7=13
    • 5+6=11
    • 6+5=11
  • 7+7=14
    • 8+7=15
    • 7+8=15
    • 6+7=13
    • 7+6=13
  • 8+8=16
    • 9+8=17
    • 8+9=17
    • 7+8=15
    • 8+7=15
  • 9+9=18
    • 10+9=19
    • 9+10=19
    • 8+9=17
    • 9+8=17
  • 10+10=20
    • 11+10=21
    • 10+11=21
    • 9+10=19
    • 10+9=19

You can see how learning just a handful of doubles facts builds a bigger repertoire of math facts. This is a particularly good path strategy for learning tricky addition facts that kids often struggle with, especially with adding the higher 6’s, 7’s, 8’s, and 9’s.

Adding Doubles and Near Doubles 

Adding doubles is a math fact memorization technique.  It is easier for kids to remember that 2+2=4, 6+6=12, 7+7=14, 9+9=18, etc.  

Kids can first memorize the doubles facts. Once they’ve got those addition facts down pat, recognizing that the near doubles facts are just one off from the double makes learning a whole new set of numbers easy.

For example:

First the student would memorize the near double of 6+6=12.

Then, when that becomes a math fact they know by sight, they can look at the math problem 6+5 and recognize that the addend 5 is just one less than the doubles fact for 6. They can know the number sense that the problem 6+5 is one less than 6+6 and easily identify the answer of 11.

Similarly, if the student is presented with the near doubles problem of 6+7, they can recognize that the addend 7 is one more than the doubles fact for 6. They can identify by number sense that the answer for 6+7 is one more than 6+6 and that the answer is 13.

Near doubles assist students with adding one more or one less than the doubles facts.

By this, we mean that once a student knows the doubles fact of 6+6=12, they then also know:

  • 6+5=11
  • 5+6=11
  • 6+7=13
  • 7+6=13

You can see how the doubles and near doubles concept builds number sense and allows students to become much more fluent and efficient at math problems.


Doubles and Near Doubles Activity

We made this near doubles activity to help with second grade math concepts, specifically in adding Doubles and adding Near Doubles., using a fun spider craft. The OT in me loves that it works on quite a few fine motor skills and scissor skills too!

I wanted to create a hands-on math activity using the doubles and Near Doubles addition facts with a spider theme.  

It’s an easy and quick activity to set up, that will help second graders realize how to quickly figure out more addition facts quite easily.  This is a math skill appropriate for Common Core Standards CCSS 2.0A.1 and CCSS 2.0A.2.  You can see those Common Core standards here.

To make your Near Doubles Spider Activity

Cut out paper strips to write doubles and near doubles addition facts.

You’ll need just a few materials for this doubles and near doubles practice activity:

  • Black construction paper
  • White colored pencil
  • Scissors
  • Glue
  • Googly eyes

To make this doubles and near doubles craft, complete these steps:

  1. Cut out 8 strips of black construction paper.  These will become the spider’s legs.
  2. Using a white colored pencil, write out doubles facts on one side of the black paper strips. You’ll need to write the following doubles facts on the paper strips:
    • 2+2=__
    • 3+3=__
    • 4+4=__
    • 5+5=__
    • 6+6=__
    • 7+7=__
    • 8+8=__
    • 9+9=__
  3. On the other side of each spider leg paper strip, write with your white colored pencil:
    • 2+3=__
    • 3+4=__
    • 4+5=__
    • 5+6=__
    • 6+7=__
    • 7+8=__
    • 8+9=__
    • 9+8=__
  4. Cut out a circle out of the black paper for the head.
  5. Glue googly eyes onto the spider’s head.  
  6. Glue the legs to the spider head so the Doubles are all on one side and the Near Doubles are all on the other side.  

Kids can flip the legs over to see how closely the doubles are to the Near Doubles and how knowing the Doubles facts can quickly help them figure out the Near Double facts.

You can make multiple versions of these numbers, using the commutative property of addition

Spider craft to work on doubles and near doubles facts.

Adding Doubles and Near Doubles in Second Grade Math up to 20, with a hands-on math, spider theme.

More Hands-On Math Activities you will love:

 
 Commutative Property of Addition  How to Add with Regrouping  Use play dough in math  Bottle caps in first grade math

Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.

Polar Bear Game

polar bear math game

Today, I have a hands on learning activity for second grade using a polar bear game. This number line games for 2nd grade could actually be used in any age or grade level math, however, the polar bear craft that we used for a second grade math game turned out to be a fun way to work on base ten operations and adding 10’s and 100’s to two and three digit numbers. In second grade, adding two digits is a big deal! This polar bear activity is a fun two digit addition games for 2nd grade (and other grades).

If polar bear crafts and activities are right up your ally this winter, try some of these other polar bear activities, including a polar bear slide deck for distance learning or virtual therapy brain breaks, and this cute polar bear self-regulation activity.

polar bear math game for teaching second grade place value and two digit addition with hands on learning.

Polar Bear Craft

You’ll need a few materials for the polar bear craft. Full disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

White crafting pom poms
(1 inch) White crafting pom poms
(1/4 inch) Black crafting pom pom
(1/8 inch) Mini googly eyes
Crafting glue

Polar bear craft

To make the polar bear craft, glue the small white crafting pom poms to the white pom pom. These will become the polar bear’s ears.  Glue the black pom pom to the bear’s face. This will become the nose.  Add the googly eyes and your polar bear craft is done.

There are a lot of fine motor skills being addressed in the making of this polar bear craft: pincer grasp, eye-hand coordination, in-hand manipulation, bilateral coordination, and separation of the sides of the hand.

Polar bear craft made with pom poms or cotton balls.

This polar bear craft would pair nicely with our snowball math activity, designed to inspire hands-on learning with gross motor skills. The polar bear math activity described here would also go well with our Winter Fine Motor Kit, which is loaded with polar bear themed fine motor activities and crafts designed to target and strengthen specific fine motor skills.

Polar bear math game for second grade base ten operations concepts like adding 10s and 100s to two and three digit numbers for hands on fun and creative learning with a fun polar bear craft!

Polar Bear Game

We played a polar bear game to boost second grade math skills by working on adding 10’s and 100’s to numbers along the number line.  I showed my daughter how to use a straw to blow the craft pom pom polar bear craft across the table and along the number line.  

We started the bear at zero and tried to see how far she could get the bear to go down the number line.  I then asked her a few questions that I had written out on cards:

  • What is your digit?
  • Is your digit even or odd?
  • What is 10 more?
  • What is 10 less?
  • What is 100 more?

We played a few times and then tried a few different extension ideas for this activity.

  • Starting at where the polar bear lands, count on by 2’s, 5’s, 10’s, and 100’s.
  • Start out by saying “We’ll add 100 to the number where your bear lands.” Then, practice counting backwards by 2’s, 5’s, 10’s, and 100’s.
  • Use two polar bear crafts to practice single and double digit adding and subtracting.
Make a polar bear craft with craft pom poms and use it in a polar bear game in therapy interventions or the classroom.

This polar bear game would be a great way to work on aspects of numbers with a hands-on approach to learning. Use it along with this Snowman Math-Composing and Decomposing Numbers activity.

Polar Bear Sensory Activity

This activity doubles as a polar bear sensory activity as it offers oral motor skills work. By blowing the straw to move the craft pom poms, children experience proprioceptive input through their mouth and cheeks. This sensory input is calming and can be a regulating tool to help kids focus following the heavy work through their mouth.

Using the straw to blow the polar bear across the table requires some “oomph” because of the weight of the crafting pom poms.  Blowing through a straw is a great way to provide proprioception through a winter-themed oral motor activity. This is a fun activity for sensory seekers, kids who seek out oral motor input, and children who tend to fidget during learning or homework.  

Check out our January Occupational Therapy calendar for more winter-themed sensory activities. 

Challenge oral motor skills with proprioceptive input through the mouth using this straw and cotton ball polar bear craft.

Polar Bear Therapy Activities

If blowing the straw requires too much effort for your child, or you would like to try a fine motor activity, practice flicking the polar bear across the table. Keeping the bear on the table requires precision of fine motor skills, making it another way to use the polar bear craft in therapy and hands-on learning.

Additional polar bear therapy ideas include:

Use this polar bear gross motor activity to work on balance, motor planning, movement changes, and strengthening.

This polar bear science activity challenges fine motor skills.

Use polar bear crafts, pencil control sheets, scissor skills challenges, and more in the Winter Fine Motor Kit.

This Polar Bear Food Chains activity focuses on handwriting.

This Polar Animals Facts Game and this Polar Animals True or False? activity challenges executive functioning skills and scissor skills. 

This Polar Bear Footprint Multiplication activity builds hand strength, arch development, grasp, and coordination.

This Polar Animal Pattern Activity for First Grade focuses on visual perceptual skills. 

This Arctic Animals Sight Words Game develops visual perceptual skills.

For some penguin fun, this Penguin Art Project inspires fine motor development with a penguin craft. This Penguin Addition to 100 with Hundreds Chart builds eye hand coordination and fine motor skills.

Grab the Winter Fine Motor Kit, with 100 pages of done-for-you therapy activities, including polar bear themes. Grab it now before January 9th and you get a bonus of 3 fine motor slide deck activities.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE WINTER FINE MOTOR KIT.

winter fine motor kit

These reproducible activity pages include: pencil control strips, scissor skills strips, simple and complex cutting shapes, lacing cards, toothpick precision art, crumble hand strengthening crafts, memory cards, coloring activities, and so much more.

Play Dough Roll Mats- Use the 6 play dough mats to develop fine motor skills and hand strength needed for tasks like coloring with endurance, manipulating small items, and holding a pencil. Kids can roll small balls of play dough with just their fingertips to strengthen the intrinsic muscles.

Pinch and Grip Strength Activities- Challenge fine motor skills with polar bear and winter themed glue skills page, tong/tweezer activities, lacing cards, finger puppets, 1-10 counting clip cards, 10 toothpick art pages, find & color page, 5 crumble art pages. 

Pencil Control Worksheets- Connect the arctic animals or winter items and stay on the pencil path lines while mastering pencil control.

Arctic Animal Cutting Strips and Scissor Skills Sheets- Work on scissor skills to cut along lines to reach the arctic animal friends or snowflakes, snowmen, and mittens. This is a great way to strengthen the motor and visual skills needed for cutting with scissors.  

Handwriting Sensory Bin Materials- You and the kiddos will love these A-Z uppercase and lowercase tracing cards with directional arrows, 1-10 tracing cards with directional arrows, 1-10 counting cards. 

“I Spy” Modified Paper- Includes: Color and find objects in two themes: winter items and arctic animals; 3 styles of modified paper for each theme: single rule bold lines, double rule bold lines, highlighted double rule. 

Fine Motor Handwriting Sheets- Try the 4 Find/Color/Copy pages in different styles of modified paper, rainbow writing pages in 3 styles of modified paper.

Write the Room Activities- Using a winter theme, these Write the Room cards includes: 5 lowercase copy cards, 5 uppercase copy cards, 5 lowercase tracing cards, 5 uppercase copy cards, 6 cursive writing copy cards, 2 styles of writing pages.

Get the Winter Fine Motor Kit Here.

Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.

Second Grade Math Outdoor Learning Idea

There is nothing like learning in the great outdoors.  The breeze in your hair, the birds tweeting, and bugs getting involved in the outdoor classroom.  Learning outside with the kids is a fun twist on the everyday math homework!  We love to spend time outdoors.  And, I love to sneak learning activities into our play.  This Math Scavenger Hunt idea was a fun way to practice second grade math concepts like adding and subtracting two digit numbers.  Our math rocks made this move and learn activity extra fun.
 
We’ve shared quite a few outdoor learning activities on the blog before.  The favorite in our back yard was this pre-reading literacy activity.  We even used a few of the same hiding places for today’s math activity.
 
Outdoor learning math ideas and creative movement activity using rocks for second grade math addition and subtraction ideas.

Outdoor Math Activity for Kids

 
This post contains affiliate links.
 
To start with, we used rocks to create math manipulatives.  These pebbles were collected from a trip to our camp this past summer and painting them was a fun way to recall summer memories.  You can use rocks of any size or shape for this activity.  Just be sure to use acrylic paint so that the color doesn’t flake off of the rock’s surface.  I love this brand of acrylic paints for it’s price! We painted both sides of the rocks in different colors.  You can paint your rocks all one color or mix it up a bit.  We went for the colorful approach.  For the numbers, I used a paint marker.  Be sure to allow the paint to dry before writing on the numbers.
 
When the paints have all dried, you are ready to take these math rocks outside for learning and play!
 
Outdoor learning math ideas and creative movement activity using rocks for second grade math addition and subtraction ideas.

Outdoor Learning Math Ideas

 
We played a few different games with our math rocks.
 
Outdoor learning math ideas and creative movement activity using rocks for second grade math addition and subtraction ideas.
  • I hid a bunch of the rocks in a small area of our yard.  I had my second grader search for two rocks at a time.  When she brought them back, I asked her to add or subtract the numbers.
  • We used specific numbers in a small area of the yard.  I named a large number and had her find two rocks that added up to that number.  (We have enough rocks that we were able to number them 0-100 using both sides of the rocks, so this worked out easily.)
  • Using smaller numbers, I showed her two numbers.  She had to go off and look for the missing number in a math subtraction equation. 
Outdoor learning math ideas and creative movement activity using rocks for second grade math addition and subtraction ideas.
How would you use these math rocks to play?
 
Looking for more outdoor learning ideas? Try some of these:

Nests Nature Hunt for Kids from Still Playing School


Outside Arrays for Multiplication Practice from Line Upon Line Learning


Sidewalk Chalk Outdoor Math Game from Look! We’re Learning!


Gardening For Math Time from Preschool Powol Packets



Tree Unit Study and Science Experiment from Schooling a Monkey

Outdoor learning math ideas and creative movement activity using rocks for second grade math addition and subtraction ideas.
Outdoor learning math ideas and creative movement activity using rocks for second grade math addition and subtraction ideas.

AM PM Time Telling with Shopkins

AM PM time activities

Here we used a small manipulative to teach the difference between am and pm. Am and pm activities are great for helping kids to understand time and management of time. Much like this rock clock activity, the use of small manipulatives helps to build skills such as eye-hand coordination through play. It’s another activity to teach time to kids that uses fun and imaginative play!

Am PM Activity for Kids

I stepped on one again.


A little plastic toy that seems innocent enough, but it’s actually much like stepping on a hot knife. Aka a LEGO.

Only after you’re limping from the wounds of stepping on it, this cute little plastic toy just smiles back at you.  

Shopkins.

If your house is like mine, you’ve got a zillion Shopkins in tins, in plastic sorting containers, and escaping onto the floor only to stab innocent passing feet in the night.  They are little pieces of pink plastic figures that are…a little strange…and your kids know ever single name and every single one they own.  

So, how do you battle the never-ending Shopkins fad?  If you can’t beat ’em (Because they sure are beating up my feet!), then you join ’em!  

We used our Shopkins in a learning activity to practice time telling skills, including differentiating between AM and PM.

Teach am and pm with shopkins or any small toy using this hands on approach to teaching time.

am pm activities, am pm for kids, am pm sorting acivity, am pm visual

AM PT Sorting Activity

In this activity, we used small toys to sort between am and pm activities. The AM/PM visual was a great way to get buy-in for our kids. They LOVE Shopkins. But you could use any small figures in this same activity.

This post contains affiliate links.


For this activity, we used our (Amazon affiliate link) Shopkins on a hand drawn clock.  I pulled out a few colors of play dough to use as movable clock hands.  

As we moved the hands around the clock to different positions, I had my daughter tell me the ways to read the clock.  We used both hours (10:15) and words (a quarter after ten) to describe the time.


We then added the Shopkins to the activity.  I had my daughter grab one of the Shopkins.  I moved the hands around the clock to a new time and then asked my daughter to tell me if the Shopkin would be used in the am or the pm.    


Depending on the position of the clock hands, a Shopkin could be used in an AM or PM activity:  A toast Shopkin would be used at 8:15 AM and not 8:15 PM.  The Slippers Shopkin would be used at 11:45 PM and not 11:45 PM.  The cake Shopkin would be used at 2:30 PM and not 2:30 AM.

Use small toys to sort am and pm activities.

My daughter had fun coming up with different scenarios with all of the Shopkins.  

We got a lot of time telling practice and the cute little plastic toys stayed safely on the table and off of the floor where they could cause me any more foot injuries!

Learning with Small Toys

Mini-figures like Shopkins or small animal toys are great manipulatives for learning concepts.

With small toys like mini-figures, children get the buy-in and motivation to play with preferred toys and characters.

However, there is the fine motor benefit happening too. Children can play with small toys and incorporate fine motor development such as:

  • Eye-hand coordination
  • Precision
  • Graded grasp
  • Pincer grasp
  • Separation of the sides of the hand
  • Eye-hand coordination
  • Wrist development

By placing the small toys onto a specific spot they develop motor and precision skills that can be carried over to functional tasks…not to mention the play factor!

A final note on AM PM activities

When kids are confident with time concepts such as AM and PM and the passage of time, they are more confident in time management and other executive functioning skills. Read more about using a timer in handwriting and timed tasks to encourage time management during a functional task.

Teaching kids how to tell time and AM PM differentiation with Shopkins and a hands on learning activity for math.



Do you have Shopkins all over your house, too?  Let me know if you use Shopkins in a time telling activity like this one! I would love to hear about it.

Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.

Fun Way to Explain Regrouping Hundreds and Tens with chocolate!

Need to explain regrouping? Are you thinking Ok, HOW do I teach regrouping of tens or hundreds when I am totally wondering “what is regrouping”?!? This very fun and completely motivating regrouping activity is a hands on math activity that will explain regrouping for math as well as regrouping for addition! AND, the best part is that chocolate math is the way to go…even if the chocolate seems to be subtracting (into mouths) more than adding! 

Here’s the thing: Sometimes, practicing the same.old.math.facts. gets booooring!


It’s boring for the second grader and boring for mom.


But, practice needs to happen and new math skills need to be practiced! So, what is a bored-to-the-gills Mom to do when there is yet another night of subtracting triple digit numbers?


You bring on the chocolate.


This regrouping hundreds and tens math activity is hands-on and taste-bud friendly and was a big hit (surprise, surprise!) with my daughter…and me.  We made math fun by adding chocolate chips as my second grader subtracted three digit numbers.  It is such an easy math activity to put together and uses hands-on learning to make math activity fun (and delicious).


We’ve shared a few other hands-on math activities on the blog, and even some re-grouping activities like this double digit regrouping activity or beginner regrouping tips. This one might be the favorite of the bunch 😉

Regrouping Hundreds Math Activity

Regrouping math with chocolate chips


Regrouping Tens and Hundreds with Chocolate 



Full Disclosure:This post contains affiliate links.


You don’t need many materials for this math activity.  
We used:
chocolate chips

((There are Mini Chocolate Chips
on the market for those kids that really want to practice their math problems after seeing this activity.))

Paper
Marker
math problems

Regrouping math with chocolate chips

Use a marker to draw three sections on a piece of paper.  Label them “Hundreds”, “Tens”, and “Ones”.   Grab a bowl of chocolate chips
and some math problems.  Ask your child to look at a math problem and sort the chocolate chips
into the columns.  If the math problem is 634-x=, sort  6 chocolate chips into the hundred column, 3 chips into the tens column, and 4 chips into the ones column.  Then, as your child subtracts a two or three digit number from 634, move the chips around in the columns.  Try subtracting 634-256=.  Six can not be subtracted from four, so you need to regroup to make it a larger number.  Take a chip from the tens column and with your pencil, cross out “6”. Make it into a “16” and subtract the ones column.  Continue through the problem and when you subtract the tens column, remove a chocolate chip from the hundreds column.

Regrouping math with chocolate chips

We had fun snacking on the chocolate chips after re-grouping.  This was a math activity that my daughter didn’t mind doing over and over again!


MORE Ways to Practice math skills with chocolate chips:

  • Grab a handful of chips and place them into each of the columns.  Count the chips and name the number.  If there are more than 10 chips in the ones, tens or hundreds column, move them over to the next higher column.  
  • Practice adding with the chocolate chips and carry the extra tens over into the tens and hundreds columns.



Looking for more chocolate learning ideas?  Stop by and see what the other Early Elementary Blogging Team have created with chocolate:

Chocolate learning activities for hands on learning


Make Fractions Fun with Chocolate from Crafty Kids at Home
Chocolate Cocoa Writing Tray from Still Playing School
Chocolate Sight Words Writing from Natural Beach Living
Tracing with Chocolate from Sugar, Spice, & Glitter

Mini Pumpkin Stickers Fine Motor Activity

This mini pumpkin stickers activity is a fine motor workout for little hands!

Sometimes you have to make Second Grade boring homework a little more fun.  Am I right?? Homework is definitely NOT play-based and after a loooong day at school, kids are ready to p.l.a.y! When they have to sit down to do homework and study for those upcoming tests, homework can become more of a battle than is should.  Do we ever know this in our house!  Some days, a visit to the dentist to pull teeth would be easier than getting the 5 minute homework task done.

 English Language Arts in second grade covers nouns and predicates in sentences and my kiddo has been busy figuring identifying nouns and predicates in her decodable readers that are sent home from school.  We practiced a bit with these DIY mini pumpkin stickers…and voila!

 Pumpkin Predicates were born!

 


Practicing Nouns and Predicates with a Pumpkin Theme:

 Pumpkin Predicate and Noun activity for second grade English Language Arts.  Kids will love to identify the pumpkin predicate with these cute DIY pumpkin stickers!
 

 

 
 
(This post contains affiliate links.)
 


First, What is a noun and a predicate?

Second graders are responsible for knowing what a noun and a predicate is, by definition and by showing examples in sentences.  
A noun is a person, place, thing, or idea.  There are proper nouns (like Alabama, Tuesday, and Sammy) and plain old fashion nouns aka: common nouns…(like steak, alligator, and tennis ball).  The noun is the subject of the sentence and is the do-er of the action in the sentence.
 
A predicate is a verb or verb string.  It is the action of the sentence.
 
So, after practicing that with my daughter, off we went on our Pumpkin Predicate fun!
 
Pumpkin Predicate and Noun activity for second grade English Language Arts.  Kids will love to identify the pumpkin predicate with these cute DIY pumpkin stickers!
 
To make the pumpkins, grab a sheet of full-sheet label paper
This is the stuff that has a sticky back and you make address labels with. Very cool and useful stuff in crafting, I might add. Scribble a rectangle of orange with an orange marker. Then, use your
hole punch
to make a bunch of orange holes. Use a green marker to make a tiny little stem, and you are done! Instant teeny tiny cute little pumpkin stickers.
 
Pumpkin Predicate and Noun activity for second grade English Language Arts.  Kids will love to identify the pumpkin predicate with these cute DIY pumpkin stickers!
 
Pumpkin Predicate and Noun activity for second grade English Language Arts.  Kids will love to identify the pumpkin predicate with these cute DIY pumpkin stickers!
 
We used decodable readers that my second grader had from school.  They photocopied booklets that the school has created and sent home with each student.  You can make your own sentences to practice predicate and noun naming, use worksheets, the newspaper, or magazines.  You don’t want to stick these pumpkin stickers in a real book, because the stickers will be hard to remove. 
 
Have your child name the noun and the predicate in sentences.  Place the pumpkin stickers above each predicate.  Note: Peeling the backs from the label sheet stickers can be a real exercise in fine motor dexterity!  Your kiddo will get their fine motor skills moving!
 
Pumpkin Predicate and Noun activity for second grade English Language Arts.  Kids will love to identify the pumpkin predicate with these cute DIY pumpkin stickers!
 
 Love it? Pin it!
 
So punch out those pumpkins and play away the homework blues.  These cute little pumpkins are sure to help make predicate practice a bit more fun!
 
Looking for more second grade activities with a pumpkin theme?  Try these from our Second Grade Blogger Team:
 
How to Carve a Pumpkin Writing Prompts by Still Playing School 
How to Set Up a Pumpkin Engineering Task Your Second Graders Will Love by Thriving STEM

 

Pumpkin Seed Place Value – Subtraction Math Fact by Rainy Day Mum

Shapes on a Pumpkin by Preschool Powol Packets 

 Pumpkin Math Fact Pick and Solve Sticks by Creative Family Fun

 

 

 
 
 
Pumpkin Predicate and Noun activity for second grade English Language Arts.  Kids will love to identify the pumpkin predicate with these cute DIY pumpkin stickers!
 
Looking for more second grade activities?  You will love these: 
 

 

 

Pumpkin activity kit
Pumpkin Fine Motor Kit

Grab the Pumpkin Fine Motor Kit for more coloring, cutting, and eye-hand coordination activities with a Pumpkin theme! It includes:

  • 7 digital products that can be used any time of year- has a “pumpkins” theme
  • 5 pumpkin scissor skills cutting strips
  • Pumpkin scissor skills shapes- use in sensory bins, math, sorting, pattern activities
  • 2 pumpkin visual perception mazes with writing activity
  • Pumpkin “I Spy” sheet – color in the outline shapes to build pencil control and fine motor strength
  • Pumpkin Lacing cards – print, color, and hole punch to build bilateral coordination skills
  • 2 Pumpkin theme handwriting pages – single and double rule bold lined paper for handwriting practice

Work on underlying fine motor and visual motor integration skills so you can help students excel in handwriting, learning, and motor skill development.

You can grab this Pumpkin Fine Motor kit for just $6!

Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.

Nickel and Dime Skip Counting Math

Second grade math.  It can be a complicated thing for kids.  Second grade math moves along fast.  We’re in our third week of school and my second grader is moving right along!  We made this nickel and dime coin activity for our Second Grade Math series.  This week’s theme is money and we used coins in conjunction with the skip counting that my second grader is doing at school this week.  It was fun to show her how skip counting by 5’s and 10’s is used in real-world applications like counting coins.  
Nickel and Dime money math skip counting to count money.  This is second grade skip counting math activity is a fun way to practice addition and teach money.


Nickel and Dime Skip Counting by 5’s and 10’s Math Activity

This post contains affiliate links.  Counting and playing with coins is an excellent fine motor activity.  We’ve shared a coin activity for kids before.  For this skip counting activity, we used our Play Money Set only because we had it.  You can do this math activity using real coins.

Nickel and Dime money math skip counting to count money.  This is second grade skip counting math activity is a fun way to practice addition and teach money.

To start, we practiced naming and sorting coins.  I had my second grader sort the nickels and dimes for this activity.  She is working on skip counting by 5’s and 10’s (both forward and backward) to and from 1,000.  So, skip counting out our nickel and dime coins was a great way for her to see how skip counting is used in real life.
Nickel and Dime money math skip counting to count money.  This is second grade skip counting math activity is a fun way to practice addition and teach money.


Second Grade Math Money Activity

To practice skip counting the coins, I created this Coin Skip Count printable sheet.  You can get the printable worksheet for FREE here.  Next, use small post-it notes to write different amounts of change.  Stick the notes along the left side of the worksheet.  You could also write directly on the sheet, but I wanted to save on ink and only print one page for many coin-counting trials.

Nickel and Dime money math skip counting to count money.  This is second grade skip counting math activity is a fun way to practice addition and teach money.
 
Show your child how nickels add up in increments of 5 and practice skip counting by 5’s to reach the amount on the page.  Then, add up dimes and practice skip counting by 10’s to reach the numbers.  
 
Alternate activities:
  • Practice skip counting down from 100 by subtracting coins to reach the number listed.
  • Add quarters to the activity to practice adding to dollars.
  • Add up coins to beyond one dollar.
Looking for more second grade activities?  Follow our Second Grade Learning Pinterest board.
 
Or, if you are looking for more second grade money activities, see what the others on the Second Grade Bloggers team have come up with this week: 

Here are some other great Money activities for your 2nd graders!

Chemical Reactions with Pennies from Creative Family Fun 

Money Activities for Second Grade from Look! We’re Learning! 

Money Math Problems for 1st-3rd Grade from Planet Smarty Pants 

Counting Coins Scavenger Hunt from School Time Snippets 

Nickel and Dime money math skip counting to count money.  This is second grade skip counting math activity is a fun way to practice addition and teach money.
Love this post?  Share it on Facebook and Tweet: Teach kids how to count money with this nickel and dime skip counting math activity: http://ctt.ec/E9gwN+ it!
 
More math activities you will love:
 Commutative Property of Addition  How to Add with Regrouping  Use play dough in math  Bottle caps in first grade math

Super Hero Craft for Skip Counting

super hero craft

I have a fun occupational therapy craft to share today. This superhero craft is a SUPER way to help kids develop fine motor skills and hand strength. It’s a clothes pin craft, so when kids make these super hero clothes pins, they are really strengthening hand strength and endurance in the hands.

Add these superhero craft to these superhero activities:

Make a super hero craft with clothes pins to work on fine motor skills with a super hero theme.

Super Hero Craft

Super hero craft made with clothes pins to help with hand strength and fine motor skills as well as teaching skip counting.

How to make a super hero craft 

  Making the super heroes are part of the fun with this math activity.  We used a few items to create these super cute super heroes:  

  1. Cut the card stock into triangle shapes with a flat top.  Measure the size against the length of the clothes pins.  
  2. Glue the Triangle to one long side of the wooden clothes pins  with the narrow part of the triangle at the part that pinches.  The “head” of your superhero will be the part that pinches paper.  
  3. Cut small rectangles from the card stock to fit the width of the clothes pins.  These will become the superhero’s mask.  
  4. Glue the mask onto the clothespin about a 1/4 inch from the top of the clothes pin.  
  5. Use a marker or permanent marker to draw a smirk (or angry face, if you like) and eyes on the mask.  
Superhero themed second grade math for place value, addition, and skip counting to 1000.

  This super hero craft is ready to fight math crime!

Super hero craft made with clothes pins.

Skip Counting by 1000

You may know that occupational therapists love hands-on learning. We love to seek multisensory learning and activities that kids can move and learn at the same time. This superhero craft does just that.

The school year is about to begin and we will have a second grader in our house.  HOW did that happen?? She loved math in first grade and I’m excited to see her growth and learning this year in second grade.  We do so many enrichment and homework extension activities and it is fun to come up with creative ways to practice what the kids have been learning in school.  

This Super hero Skip Counting Activity was a fun way to practice skip counting and basic addition up to 1000.  (Affiliate links are included in this post).  

For more fine motor math, grab our count and color worksheet to build many visual motor skills.

Use this super hero craft for hand strengthening and to teach skip counting to 1000.

  Next, we used the printer paper to create strips of paper that became our math skip counting columns.  Simple fold the paper into quarters lengthwise.  Then, use the sharpie to draw ten horizontal lines.  You can draw a picture at the top of the strip of paper, like buildings, stars, a medal, or other superhero-ish pictures.

Superhero themed second grade math for place value, addition, and skip counting to 1000.

Multisensory Math- Skip Counting to 1000

We made four strips of paper and my daughter wrote in numbers.  On one strip she wrote 1-10. On the second, she wrote 1-100 by tens.  On the third strip she wrote 5-50 by fives.  On the last strip, she wrote 100-1000 by hundreds.  

We then used the superheros to skip count up to 1000.  

She was able to use the various strips together to do basic adding by 1’s, 5’s, 10’s, and 100’s.  

One of the standards in second grade math is understanding place value.  Skip counting to 1000, and reading and writing numbers up to 1000 are important concepts in place value.  

You can position the hundreds strip next to the ones strip and easily note that the numbers 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, and 900 refer to one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, or ten hundreds (and 0 tens and 0 ones).   There are so many ways to use these superhero skip counting strips and superhero counters.  

My daughter has been using them every day (and carting them around in her tote bag) to count out how many silly band bracelets she’s made.  She will slide the superhero counters up the strips one by one on the ones strip.  

Then when she reaches the 10, she slides the superhero up on the tens strip.  She’s got a long way to go to reach one thousand silly band bracelets, but she sure does have lofty goals (and a super fun superhero way to keep track)!    

Teach skip counting with this super hero clothes pin craft.
Superhero clothes pin craft for fine motor strengthening

These make a great fine motor strengthening activity, too.  Pinch these superheros on yarn or paper for superhero fine motor strength!   Looking for more Superhero themed ways to learn in second grade?  Try these from our Second Grade Blog Team:

Super Hero States of Matter from Look! We’re Learning!   
uperhero Pattern Stones from Rainy Day Mum   
Super Hero Reading Logs from 123 Homeschool 4 Me   

Superhero Contractions Memory Game from School Time Snippets   
Superhero Cityscape Art Project with Van Gogh from Preschool Powol Packets   
Create your own Superhero Comic-Photo-Strip from Crafty Kids at Home   
Super Hero Self Portrait from Still Playing School

More Multi-Sensory Math ideas you may enjoy: