By the end of kindergarten, children should be able to identify coins, including nickels, as units of money, and they should also know the value each coin represents, according to the Utah Education Network. Nickel-counting activities will help them improve on sorting, classifying, compare objects and assigning symbolic value to an item. Teachers who include money-related interactive games and activities will ensure that kindergartners will meet the objectives before entering first grade.
Money recognition is the primary objective for introducing nickels to kindergartners. Help students learn to distinguish nickels from dimes and quarters with coloring worksheets that feature enlarged images of the coins. Place a pile of actual coins in the center of a table and allow children to pick out all the nickels. Give children paper cutout coins and a paper piggy bank and ask them to insert only nickels. Let them play heads or tails with nickels and give them a recording sheet to keep track of the outcome. Make a paper money cube, with different coins on each face. Children roll the cube and record the results on a coin chart.
Assigning a numeric value to an object, such as a coin or clock, is a valuable skill that kindergartners are introduced to. Help students remember the value of a nickel by practicing skip counting by 5 with nickels. Use enlarged cutouts of nickels to assign worth to each student's first name. Write the name on the board, and tape a nickel cutout above each letter. Add the value of the nickels and see whose name is the most "expensive." Pass out worksheets that show an item to buy and the price in increments of 5 cents. Have students glue the correct number of nickels next to the item.
Work in activities with nickels in other subjects to include even more learning opportunities. Before reading a story, pick a money word. Every time that word is read, children put a nickel into a jar. Give children paper coins for good behavior during the week and allow them to spend the money at the end of the week at the teacher's store for pencils and stickers.
When it is computer time, let kindergartners play money sorting and counting games on education websites.