Penny Panda's Sticker Store

Money for Grades 1 - 4

Penny Panda provides lots of practice in counting money. Four main activities help children with counting a given amount, comparing amounts, presenting money to match a specific sum, and determining change accurately.

Flexible program options allow the teacher to select which coins and bills to include for practice. Have children remain at a specified level or have the program change levels automatically based on student performance.

With each correct answer, children earn money to spend at Penny Panda's Sticker Store. Visit Penny's store after each activity. Buy stickers when you have enough money. Penny has many popular stickers. Collect birds, cars, endangered animals, national flags, flowers, spiders, butterflies, insects, music and dance, dinosaurs, and sports stickers. Save up or trade for the most expensive stickers. Try to collect complete sets.

In Activity 1, Penny Panda presents an amount of money for the children to count. The correct answer may be selected by pressing the Space Bar to underline the answer and then pressing Enter or return. Students also may use the mouse to indicate the correct answer. For beginners needing entry level help, the value of a penny, nickel, dime, and quarter is defined; and bacic single denomination coin counting practice is available within the program.

For Activity 2, Penny presents two sets of money. Set A and Set B are separated by a stalk of bamboo. The mouse or the Space bar and Enter or return are used to indicate which set of money is greater.

In Activity 3, students are provided with an assortment of coins and bills and asked to put a precise amount of money into a box on the screen. By using the mouse or keyboard to select various coins, children get excellent practice in "paying" a precise amount of money.

For Activity 4, children are challenged to count the amount of money which is pictured and then to visually subtract an amount "spent" in order to determine how much would be left. As in Activities 1 - 3, the teacher can control the level of difficulty by specifying which monitary denominations to include. Also, the teacher may have children remain at a particular difficulty level or advance independently based on a specified competency rate.

Selecting, purchasing, and collecting stickers are major motivational treats for students using Penny Panda's Sticker Store. As children work through Activities 1 - 4, they earn "money" for each first-try correct answer. After each activity, children may purchase stickers at Penny's store or save their earnings for future use. During each visit to her store, Penny displays 12 stickers she currently has in stock.

As stickers are purchased, each student's sticker collection will be mounted in his or her own personalized sticker album (which is saved cumulatively from session to session). The value of a collection increases as complete sticker sets are achieved. Sets of 11 different stickers are available in the following categories: birds, butterflies, cars, dinosaurs, flowers, insects, music and dance, spiders, and sports. Sets of 33 stickers are available in two categories: endangered animals and national flags. Also, the program presents a sticker trading option; and some stickers are available only through trade.

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