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Making Sense of Money

In fourth grade, your child will use the four operations to solve word problems involving money. In order to do this, she will first learn to decompose, or break apart, one dollar into smaller units. We call these units: quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies.

Ask your child: How many quarters make up one dollar? How many quarters make up two dollars? 

Think about nickels: How many nickels make one dollar? She knows one dollar is one-hundred cents, so she might skip count by five to one-hundred. There are twenty nickels in one-hundred cents!

When using money, it’s very important to consider the units. One dollar can be written like this or like this. Five cents can be this or this.

With practice, your child will understand all the ways we represent money and be comfortable using decimal notation. Find opportunities to talk about money with your child so she can problem solve with confidence!