FREE Pigs Will Be Pigs Money Lessons!

There may not be any math topic that is more relevant to our everyday life than that of money. It’s essential that we teach our kids to add and subtract money, to use it wisely and understand how to handle their money! The book Pigs Will Be Pigs by Amy Axelrod is an excellent introduction to money for kids and helps them understand not only how to add money, but also to realize that it is finite. These Pigs will Be Pigs money lessons are intended to help kids think about whether or not they have enough to buy what they want to buy, as well as practice adding and subtracting.

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I love the Pigs Will Be Pigs books because they make math relevant and always show ways that we need and use math in our everyday life. If you haven’t already, be sure to grab my free lessons to use with the book, Pigs in the Pantry, which explore math in the kitchen!

Pigs Will Be Pigs: Fun with Math and Money by Amy Axelrod

In the book Pigs Will Be Pigs, the Pig family wants to go out to eat, but doesn’t have enough money. This sends them on the hunt for loose change around the house.

After reading through the story, let your kids go back through and keep track of how much money each family member finds to figure out the total. I’ve included two different organizers to help with this, depending on what you or your kids prefer.

The first page is simply a place to record things as they find them, and gives a little more freedom to figure out what to do with what they discover in the book. But if you like a little more structure, I’ve also included a table that organizes the information a little more for them.

Either way, the point is for them to record the different amounts of money that the pigs find, and then determine the total. Try to let them come up with the total on their own, as there are different ways to go about it.

Once they figure out how much money the Pig family has to spend, there is a page of discussion questions to go along with the story, which require using the restaurant menu in the book.

After answering those questions, I’ve created another extension lesson which allows for more practice.

This gives kids yet another chance to add up money, and then think about how much they can buy with that money. It’s important for kids to understand that if they don’t have enough money to buy something, they have to say no or buy something cheaper! 🙂

Each of these lessons flow from the book and require going in order as you determine how much money they have, how much they spend, and what’s left.

They do not, however, have to be done all in one sitting! Maybe one day you just read the story. Then the next day let kids go through and tally up how much money they actually found, and answer the discussion questions. Then on the day after that, they could work on the “Dessert” lesson.

However you choose to use this, I hope it makes math fun and relevant to your students!

{Click HERE to go to my shop and download the set of Pigs Will Be Pigs Money Lessons!}

Looking for more fun ideas for math and money? Try one of these other FREE downloads: