Hey there! Today, we’re going to have some fun exploring the coins in my piggy bank. Let’s learn about them with a little song and some cool facts!
The penny is the smallest coin and it’s worth one cent. It has a picture of Abraham Lincoln on the front. If you want to make a dollar with pennies, you’ll need 100 of them! You can count them one by one, or make it faster by counting by twos: 2, 4, 6, and so on, all the way to 100!
Next up is the nickel. It’s bigger than a penny and worth five cents. Thomas Jefferson is on the front of the nickel. To make a dollar with nickels, you need 20 of them. You can count by fives: 5, 10, 15, all the way to 100!
The dime is the smallest coin, but it’s worth more than a penny or nickel—ten cents! Franklin D. Roosevelt is on the front. To make a dollar with dimes, you need 10 of them. Count by tens: 10, 20, 30, up to 100!
Now, let’s talk about the quarter. It’s worth 25 cents and has George Washington on the front. Quarters have cool designs on the back, showing different states. You only need 4 quarters to make a dollar: 25, 50, 75, 100!
Look at this big coin! It’s called a half dollar and it’s worth 50 cents. It has John F. Kennedy on the front. You just need 2 half dollars to make a dollar: 50, 100!
Finally, we have dollar coins like the Sacagawea and Susan B. Anthony coins. Each is worth one whole dollar. There are also special presidential dollar coins with different presidents on them!
Did you know that coins used to be made of silver? Now they’re made of metals like copper, nickel, and zinc. Coins are made at a place called a mint, not the kind you eat!
Counting coins can be fun and easy. You can stack them or count by twos, fives, or tens. Coins are not just money; they tell stories about important people and places in the United States. Happy counting!
Coin Hunt Adventure: Go on a coin hunt around your house with a grown-up. See how many different types of coins you can find. Once you have a collection, try sorting them into groups: pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, half dollars, and dollar coins. Count how many of each type you have and add up their total value. Can you make a dollar using different combinations of coins?
Coin Rubbing Art: Create a piece of art using coin rubbings. Place a piece of paper over a coin and gently rub a crayon or pencil over it to reveal the design. Try this with different coins and see if you can spot the faces of Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, George Washington, and John F. Kennedy. Talk about what you see and learn about the people on the coins.
Story Time with Coins: Imagine that each coin could tell a story. Pick a coin and create a short story about its journey. Where has it been? What has it seen? Share your story with a friend or family member. This will help you think about the history and stories behind the coins we use every day.
Here’s a sanitized version of the provided YouTube transcript:
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[Music]
Let’s explore the different coins inside my piggy bank! I can’t wait to see what they look like. Let’s sing a song to learn about the different coins.
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The coin that’s worth one cent is the smallest. Abraham Lincoln is on the front.
Wow, that’s so many!
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It’s bigger than a penny. Now that makes sense! On the front of the nickel is Thomas Jefferson, the drafter of the Declaration of Independence.
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Franklin D. Roosevelt is on the front of this coin.
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This coin is a quarter. The edge has many grooves and it’s worth 25 cents.
Now check out these designs on the back!
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Quarters do not lack interesting designs. George Washington has been on the front since 1932.
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This coin is worth 50 cents.
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From quarters, I am told, there is one that looks gold, but Susan B. Anthony is on the silver one.
Oh, oh!
Sacagawea was a famous Shoshone interpreter and guide in the early 1800s. She helped explorers Lewis and Clark discover new lands in the western part of the United States. If it wasn’t for Sacagawea, Lewis and Clark may never have seen the Great Plains or the Pacific Ocean.
Wow, that’s a really neat story! I guess all those people who are on the coins must be very important to the United States.
That’s right! In fact, starting in 2007, the U.S. Mint began releasing four new dollar coins every year. Each one of these coins will have the face of a different American president on the front, and all of them will have the Statue of Liberty on the back.
Here are just a few of these coins. They’re about the same size and color as the Sacagawea dollar, but look, they have writing on the edge!
Now that we know what the coins look like, let’s learn to count them. We’ll start by counting pennies.
Uh, wow! Penny, it kind of looks like you.
I don’t know, I don’t really see the resemblance.
Now, if we want enough pennies to equal a dollar bill, we’ll have to count 100 pennies. We could count them one by one, or to make it go a little faster, we could count by twos, pulling two pennies toward us each time we count.
That sounds like a good idea! One penny is also called one cent, so two pennies are two cents. Let’s count by twos until we have a dollar or 100 cents:
2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 42, 44, 46, 48, 50, 52, 54, 56, 58, 60, 62, 64, 66, 68, 70, 72, 74, 76, 78, 80, 82, 84, 86, 88, 90, 92, 94, 96, 98, 100.
Hooray! We counted 100 cents—that’s a whole dollar!
There are other ways we can count pennies too. We can put them in stacks of 5 or 10 and skip count using the stacks. Putting pennies in stacks also makes it easier if we have to count them with other coins, like the nickel.
Nickels are the silver-colored coins with Thomas Jefferson on the front, and they have a very smooth edge. They’re also thicker and heavier than pennies.
That’s right! Now remember, nickels can have different designs on them. They’re made that way by the United States Mint.
I love mints!
No, Penny, not that kind of mint! When we’re talking about coins, the word “mint” means a place where the coins are made.
Take a look at these nickels. They all have Thomas Jefferson on the front, but this one has a close-up of him. Even though they look a little different from each other, each nickel is still worth five cents.
So counting nickels is like counting by fives:
5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75, 80, 85, 90, 95, 100.
Now that we’ve counted the nickels up to a dollar, let’s see how many nickels it took to make that dollar:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20.
So to make a dollar, we need 100 pennies or 20 nickels.
Let’s see how many dimes we need to make a dollar. Dimes are the smallest coins of all, and they have Franklin D. Roosevelt on the front. The edges of the dimes are not smooth; they have ridges.
But wait a second! If dimes are worth more than nickels and pennies, why are they the smallest coin?
Well, let me tell you a little about the history of money. Dimes, quarters, half dollars, and dollar coins used to be made of real silver. The half dollar weighed half as much as a dollar, the quarter weighed one-fourth as much as a dollar, and the dime weighed one-tenth as much as a dollar.
Nickels and pennies were always made of metals that weren’t as precious as silver because if the coins were smaller than a dime, they’d be easy to lose. That’s why the dime is our smallest coin.
Yeah, wow, that’s interesting! But our coins aren’t made of silver anymore, are they?
No, not anymore. All coins minted today are made of metals that are less valuable, like copper, nickel, and zinc.
Alright, let’s learn how to count the dimes. Since dimes are worth ten cents each, we need to count by tens:
10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100.
Let’s see how many dimes it took to make a dollar:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
Ten dimes make a dollar.
Now let’s count some quarters! Take a look at all these different kinds of quarters. In 1999, the U.S. Mint started a program to commemorate each of the 50 states in the order that they joined the Union. Each state is honored by having its own design on the back of the quarter.
So about every 10 weeks from 1999 to 2008, the Mint changed what is on the back of the quarter. Quarters made before 1999 have an eagle on the back, but all quarters have our first president, George Washington, on the front.
I’ve always thought counting quarters was fun:
25, 50, 75, a dollar.
It takes only 4 quarters to make a dollar because a quarter is one-fourth of a dollar or 25 cents.
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Look, this coin is really big!
Yes, it is, and you know what else? It’s worth even more than a quarter.
No, really?
Yes! A half dollar is worth 50 cents, so we only need two of these half dollars to make a dollar.
50 cents, a dollar.
50 cents, a dollar.
Two half dollars make one dollar, and that just makes sense! But we usually don’t see many of these half dollars around. They are a lot bigger than quarters and they have John F. Kennedy on the front.
The next coins are the dollar coins. We have the Sacagawea coin and the Susan B. Anthony coin. Each is worth one dollar, just like the presidential dollar coins.
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