Money Math · Making Change · Lesson Plan

Making Change: Be the Cashier — Teacher Lesson Plan

A ready-to-teach lesson for the free Making Change game — students play the cashier and count out the correct change with coins and bills across ten friendly checkout questions. It’s the elementary start of the cashier series, and one of the most useful money skills there is.

Grades 2–6 Lesson Plan + Interactive Activity 5–10 min game Free · No login

Download the printable lesson planPDF · 3 pages · free

For Teachers

Lesson at a glance

Topic: Money Math · Making Change · Counting Money
Grade Level: Grades 2–6
Resource Type: Lesson Plan + Interactive Activity
Estimated Time: 5–10 min game; a 20–30 min session
Format: Whole-class demo, then individually or in pairs at devices
Cost: Free — students play from a free classroom account

What Students Learn

Learning objectives

Name coins and bills and tell the value of each (penny, nickel, dime, quarter, and $1–$20 bills)
Work out how much change is owed (amount paid − price)
Count out that change using coins and bills
Use the cashier’s method — count up from the price to the amount paid
Check that the change they gave is correct

Standards

Standards aligned

Jump$tart: Spending & Saving 4
CEE: Buying Goods & Services 1
Elementary math: identifying coins and bills, counting money, and making change — aligns with the grade-2 money standard (CCSS.MATH.2.MD.C.8)

For Teachers

Before you teach

The activity is free and lives inside Money Instructor Classroom at classroom.moneyinstructor.com/interactive-lessons — a separate, privacy-first app from this website. Students open it from a signed-in student account (a class code, a username, and a PIN you hand out — no email needed). Everything is pretend money for practice.

Set up your class before this lesson (about five minutes):

Create a free class — a Bank-Only class is the simplest fit.
Add your students — a first name, initials, or a nickname is all you need (no full legal names).
Print sign-in slips — each student’s class code, username, and PIN.
To project the demo — sign in as a student on the classroom computer and open the game so the whole class can watch you serve one customer.

Unlike the older cashier lessons, this one is a scored game: ten checkout questions, with a score, a best-streak count, and a review of any missed questions at the end — quick, encouraging feedback for young learners. Change amounts use coins and bills up to $20.

Download the printable lesson planPDF · 3 pages · free

Key Terms

Vocabulary

Cashier: The person at the register who takes the money and gives change.
Price: How much an item costs.
Paid: The money the customer hands over.
Change: The money the cashier gives back when the customer pays more than the price.
Coins: Penny (1¢), nickel (5¢), dime (10¢), quarter (25¢).
Bills: Paper money — $1, $5, $10, $20.
Count up: Start at the price and count on with coins and bills until you reach what the customer paid.
Register (drawer): Where the cashier keeps the coins and bills.

The Lesson

Lesson plan

Estimated time: a 20–30 minute session (the game itself is 5–10 minutes). Works as a whole lesson or a math-center rotation.

Lesson sequence

Warm-up (3 min). Put this on the board: “A toy costs $3.00. You pay with a $5 bill. How much change do you get back — and which coins or bills would the cashier give you?” Take a few answers.
Model the cashier’s method (5 min). Project the game and serve the first customer. Read the price and what the customer paid. Instead of subtracting, count up: start at the price and add coins, then bills, until you reach what they paid — that amount is the change. Count it out loud as you tap each coin and bill.
Students play (10 min). Students open the game and serve all ten customers on their own device or in pairs. Circulate and help. Remind them: figure out the change, then count it out with the fewest coins and bills.
Watch the streak (built in). Right answers build a streak and the game cheers them on; the score and a best-streak count show at the end, with a review of any missed questions — a gentle, self-paced way to practice.
Wrap-up (2–5 min). Bring the class together and use the discussion questions below. Ask a few students to show how they counted up to make a tricky change amount.

Guided practice — the interactive game

The game is the guided practice: ten checkout questions across classroom-store scenarios, each with a customer who buys an item and pays. The student counts the correct change out of the drawer using coins and bills. Correct answers build a streak; a “Shift complete!” screen shows the score, the best streak, and a review of any missed questions. Students can play again for fresh questions as many times as they like.

Assessment — check for understanding

Students have met the goal when each one can, without help: work out the change for a purchase and count it out correctly with coins and bills — and explain how counting up from the price gets them there. Watching one or two checkouts per student, or a quick paper exit ticket (“Price $4.25, paid $5.00 — draw the change”), makes a fast check.

Differentiation & extension

Grades 2–3: start with coin-only change and small amounts; use real or printable play money alongside the game so students can touch the coins as they count.
Grades 4–6: work the full range including bills, and push for the fewest coins and bills that make the change.
Support: model the count-up method first and let students say each step out loud; pair a stronger counter with a beginner.
More practice: the Count the Money, Coin Combinations, and Dollar Up games build the same money skills. And when students are older, this exact skill becomes a real job skill in Cash Register Simulator (grades 9–12) and Cashier Training: On the Job.

Walkthrough

What students will see

The Making Change game start screen inviting students to begin their cashier shift — **1. Start the shift.** A friendly start screen sets up the cashier game — free, with pretend money.

A Making Change checkout question — a customer buys an item and the student counts out the correct change with coins and bills — **2. Make the change.** A customer buys something and pays; the student counts out the correct change with coins and bills from the drawer.

Interactive Activity