Preschool Penny Activity

With all the little things in everyday life that I take for granted,  I love having toddlers and pre-schoolers, who, with their never-failing curiosity and eagerness, help me to notice the details around me.

Pennies, like so many other small objects in our home, have been stashed out of the reach of little fingers for the past few years.  However, under very careful supervision, my "little people" recently explored some details of the most basic (and seemingly worthless) piece of American currency - the Penny. 

A few of the things I did to help make this an "educational adventure" were this:

1. We spent some time studying the details and talking about what exactly makes a penny a penny. We also looked at them compared to other coins. 
2. We used our little pile of pennies to practice counting. 
3. After counting our pennies, we worked on one-to-one correspondence skills by putting one penny in each little cup of an empty egg carton.

After completing the "educational" aspect, we finished our adventure in the realm of creativity - with some good, old-fashioned coin rubbings.  I taped several pennies to the back of a sheet of paper to keep them in place.

Then, Elizabeth and Wesley (my 4 and 2-year-olds) used colored pencils and crayons to color over the form of the pennies, revealing the details from the coins.

And that was it - nothing fancy, but a great way to make learning fun for them. I hope this helps you with finding new ways to take the everday things around your home and turn them into educational adventures for your own "little people."