What a handful of coins comes to

I can count a row of coins by fives or by tens and say how many cents.

A row of one kind of coin has one step. The number word lands on each coin once, and the last number word is the total in cents.

The child counts a mixed row dimes first and says the running total on every coin and the amount in cents at the end.

First lesson. Put out two dimes and a nickel and ask how much. Take the answers, including the ones that count three coins as three cents.

Both count runs are printed whole: five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five for coins counted in fives, and ten through to one hundred for coins counted in tens.

Children lay five nickels on the counting strip and count them by fives touching one coin per number word, run the row twice — slowly and at speed — then set two dimes down first and a nickel after them and count ten, twenty and on five more to twenty-five.

Rows counted both ways, with the total said in cents at the end of each run, and the two-dime-one-nickel row counted in both orders.

One partner lays a row of dimes and nickels and the other counts it aloud, dimes first, and says the total in cents; they swap after every row and keep each row at or under one hundred cents.

I can count a handful with different coins in it.

A mixed pile has more than one step in it. Start with the largest coin, change step when the coin changes, and the total does not depend on the order you were handed them in.

The child counts each pile from the largest coin to the smallest and writes the amount on a card before the book's sentence is read.

Yesterday every row was one kind of coin. Today the piles are mixed, and the count has to change step partway through.

Four people hand Dina a coin and the book asks how much she has after each one, printing the answer every time.

Children build the four piles the story gives, put the largest coins at the left of each, and count each pile from the largest coin down — tens for the dimes, then fives for the nickels, then ones for the pennies — writing the amount on a card laid under the pile.

Four piles each carrying a written amount card, produced before any of the book's answers were read.

The book's two sentences are read out and children hold up the card carrying the same number; where a card and the book disagree, that pile is counted again in front of a partner and the child says which coin they counted twice.

I can make one dollar out of pennies, nickels, dimes or quarters and say how many coins each way took.

The amount is pinned at one hundred cents while the number of coins changes completely. The more a coin is worth, the fewer of them a dollar takes.

The child says how many coins each way took before touching the next kind, and reads the pattern off the class chart at the end.

Handfuls have been counted. Today the same amount gets built four times out of four different coins.

Four times in this book the tree gives a crop of exactly one hundred coins, and the first of them, one hundred pennies, is a dollar picked the slowest way there is.

Pairs push the penny cup into piles of ten and count by tens to the hundredth penny, leaving the ten piles standing, then pick the same dollar in nickels counting by fives, stopping the instant the count says one hundred and saying how many nickels it took.

A strip carrying four counts — a hundred pennies, twenty nickels, ten dimes, four quarters — pinned under the class heading.

Reading down the class chart, children say the pattern aloud: the more a coin is worth, the fewer of them it takes to pick a dollar.

I can write the equation for a set of coins and build a set from an equation.

The coins and the written line say the same thing. One term per coin, a cent sign on every number, and the equation can be handed to somebody who cannot see the mat.

The child builds a partner's equation correctly with the coins out of sight, and reads their own back touching one coin per term.

Everything so far has been said aloud. Today the count gets written down in a form somebody else can build from.

Every spread in this book carries the same fact twice, once in coin words and once as an equation with cent signs.

Pairs lay two dimes and a nickel, count to twenty-five, write the equation with a cent sign on every number and read it aloud touching one coin for each term, then one partner writes an equation for ten cents and the other builds it without seeing the coins.

Equations written and read at ten cents and twenty-five cents, and a partner's equation built from the writing alone.

Children build both routes to ten cents side by side, write the equation under each, read the two aloud one after the other and say the part that is the same in both.

I can build the same amount two different ways and say why they are the same.

The number is a property of the money, not of the coins it happens to be made of. Two piles that look nothing alike can sit under one card.

The child keeps both rows on the strip while both are counted, and says the sentence that makes them one amount.

A dollar came four ways yesterday, one at a time. Today two ways stay on the desk together.

The book's closing chart gives six amounts and two different coin sets for each, then asks the reader for more.

Children write the amount on a card at the top of the strip, build the first set the chart names and count it, then build the second set directly underneath without clearing the first, so both rows can be seen at once.

Pairs of unlike rows for five, ten, twenty, twenty-five and fifty cents, each pair counted and named as one amount, with the fewer-coins row identified.

Children take one hundred cents, build the two rows the chart gives, then build a third row of their own that also counts to one hundred and uses at least two kinds of coin, counting it in front of a partner who may stop them if the count misses.

I can trade nickels for dimes and say how many coins each dollar takes.

Trading holds the amount still and changes the pile. Counting the coins instead of the cents is what makes the difference between the three dollars visible.

The child runs the nickel-to-dime trades to the end, records the three coin counts, and says how many more coins the nickel dollar takes.

Two piles have sat under one amount card. Today one pile is turned into the other, two coins at a time.

What makes a dollar is listed at the close — twenty nickels, ten dimes, four quarters — along with a question about whether the coins could be traded for something less heavy.

Children count ten dimes to a dollar and write the coin count, build the dollar again out of twenty nickels and count it by fives, then trade two nickels for one dime again and again until no nickels are left, and say whether the dollar changed.

A recording slip carrying three coin counts — twenty, ten, four — and the difference between the largest and the smallest.

Children tell another pair which of the three dollars they would rather have in their pocket, giving both coin counts as the reason and finishing the same way: they are all one dollar.

I can add two groups of coins and say how many there are in all.

The book asks its own question and answers it in counts rather than totals. A prediction written before the sentence is read is worth keeping even when it is wrong.

The child writes a prediction before the mixing-year sentence is read and does not erase it, then writes the addition sentence beside it.

Every count so far has been one crop at a time. Today the narrator mixes two and asks what the tree will give.

Halfway through, the narrator starts an experiment and asks a real question inside the text: the tree gave a hundred pennies for one thing and a hundred nickels for another, so what would it give for both?

Children set out the two crops with ten-strips, write on a prediction card how many coins they think the mixing year will give before the next sentence is read, then build exactly what the mixing sentence says and count the whole crop by tens with a finger on each strip.

Both mixing years built and counted, each written as an addition sentence beside the prediction that was made first.

Each child writes one sentence naming which mixing year put more coins on the tree and by how many, and a second comparing the fifty-and-fifty year with a plain year of one hundred, both carrying their numbers; partners trade sheets and check every number against the strips still on the desk.