I heard him downstairs, thumping around with a whine in his voice. Daniel was lonesome.

His older brother and sister were both out of town for the whole first week of summer, and my ten-year-old was bored. Never mind that he spent most of his time tormenting them or being tormented—some things you can’t share with just anyone.

I was busy trying to reorganize a room and wondered how I could get his mood to change. Guilt crept in—I should be using this time to teach him something, or play a game with him. But I needed to get this room together!

A heavy box fell over in the corner. What was in that? Another box my husband had filled quickly when the movers were arriving to pack up our house. Now, at our new house, I needed to figure out places for everything.

A look inside revealed lots of coins—bags, baskets, books and boxes of coins. My husband collects them and then never has time to organize them.

But I also discovered that lots of regular coins had been dumped in with the older collectables. Suddenly I had my activity!

Fun Family Activities Can Come from Sorting

Daniel and I spent the rest of the afternoon sorting coins. We looked at dates and put the really old ones in one box. “What is the oldest penny?” “A 1917.”

“The oldest nickel has a buffalo on it. What’s the date?” “1938...that’s not as old as the penny.”

Then the other coins, which were more current (say, 1970 and forward), we stacked in their own denominations and got them ready to roll up in paper for the bank. Never mind that he thought the coins from my birth year were positively ancient. (I reminded him that his dad's birth year coins were WAY more antique.)

Tutoring Children without Them Even Knowing

We found an old silver dollar from 1976. “This has 1776-1976 on it. Do you know what that was all about?” “That was when the country turned 200 years old.”

“Here’s a penny from 1941. What happened that year?” “Pearl Harbor.”

We talked about the presidents found on each coin, who they were and why they were important enough to be on a coin. I was surprised that he knew lots of that already!

Daniel found a half-dollar with Eisenhower on one side. Behind him is the moon, big and clear. When he asked why, I explained that the coin must have been celebrating the space program. We talked about the dates of that event. In 1969 I was a little girl watching the first moonwalk—which back then wasn’t a dance. He figured out how old I was when the Eisenhower coin was minted.

We looked again at some of those really old pennies. “This one was made in 1917. How old is it?” Daniel took some time to figure that one in his head. Just when I thought he’d given up and I was ready to help him with some subtraction, he gave me the answer. Then I told him my own grandmother was eight when that coin was minted. What year was she born? He didn’t need to think too long for that one.

Counting Can Improve Grades

There has to be another benefit to organizing all this money, more than just the education. Every year we roll all our loose change into paper rolls and take them to the bank. The money we get is a little extra spending money we take with us on summer vacation.

This time we separated all the coins and Daniel sorted the pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters so they could be rolled. Then he figured how much all that added up to.

He got so involved in this afternoon activity, he forgot all his misery! The box of coins got organized, and we had our vacation money ready to take to the bank. The three leftover quarters that didn’t fit into a roll went into Daniel’s pocket and jingled as he walked. An afternoon well-“spent”! 



Shaunna Howat is a freelance writer, editor and part time teacher. She and her husband live in Ohio with their three children.