Printable Play Money for Kids
Below is play money that resembles the USD. Among other things, these banknotes lack the faces of former presidents. This gives children the opportunity to draw their own faces and people. Alternatively, they can draw whatever they like. Animals are a fun subject, as are things such as monsters and superheroes.
The colored banknotes below are a bit smaller than those above. There is a page of green USD-style notes. And a page of colored notes with higher denominations that go up to 5000. These are good for kids to practice maths and speaking with bigger numbers.
The next two black-and-white pages of printable money make for nice coloring activities. There is some Asian-style money and some notes with cute animals on them for younger learners. Note that it is easiest for kids to color the money on the printed pages before cutting it all out.
If you want to make the money more realistic, you can either glue or staple two pieces back to back. This also makes it more durable and is a cheaper option than laminating it.
Most currencies also use coins, so here are some to print. They can be cents, dollars, or whatever you wish. The second page has coins with some computer game style symbols. These already have color but work fine printed in grayscale.
Printable Play Money Templates
Finally, we have some play money templates, both notes and coins. These are great for children to create their own currencies and can be wonderful creative projects. Learners can design their own money styles in any way they like, with pictures, numbers, and colors.
Educators and instructors can also make their own paper money designs with these templates and simply photocopy their creations to mass-produce their fun finance.
These blank coins can be assigned any value you choose. This is handy if you would like children to learn about a certain currency in particular. For example, you might want kids to get used to pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and half-dollars. All you need to do is write (or ask students to) the numbers on the coins.
Further Printable Play Money Ideas
If you are looking for some new classroom ideas for these free money printables, here are some nice things to try.
A currency exchange. You can print out several different types of the play money on this page, and of course create your own. Next, set values for each currency and create exchange rates. Students can then change money with each other as a fun mathematical exercise. You can also do short role-plays with tellers and customers. This is great practical speaking practice for ESL students looking to travel overseas.
Create a cryptocurrency. The blank coin templates above are perfect for this. Learners can make their own coin names, picture designs, and descriptions.
Shopping roleplays. The printable fake money is perfect for use as props in shopping roleplays for language learners and makes such activities more engaging. Such roleplays can be done in many ways. A good option is to do one in a grocery store setting, you can use the free fruit and vegetable flashcards as well for this.
Scoring Points Currency. No matter what game you are playing in the classroom, the paper money can be used as points for keeping score of teams and players. It adds an extra level of excitement to competitive activities.
Budgeting and shopping. Another fun exercise is to give students a set amount of money for the week. They are to write or talk about how they would spend it and what exactly they would buy.
