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Making Change Worksheets

Count up from the price to the amount paid. Answer key on the last page.

Opens your browser’s print dialog — choose “Save as PDF” to download.

Printing tips
  • Uncheck Headers and footers in the print dialog for a clean sheet.
  • Set Scale to 100% (Default), not “Fit to page” — that keeps Actual size coins actually the right size, so a real quarter laid on the paper matches.
  • Printing double-sided? The answer key would land on the back of the student’s sheet. Turn Include answer key off, print the sheets, then use Answer key only under More options.
  • Everything prints in plain black and white — you can leave “Background graphics” off.
Worksheet
Coins
Problems

Prints 2 pages: 1 worksheet page + 1 answer key page.

More options

Coin size

Versions in one print job

Change from $1, and change from a $20

Every row is one transaction: an item, its price, what the customer handed over, and a box for the change. Prices and payments are the ones a child actually meets — a 65¢ eraser paid with a dollar, a $3.70 sandwich paid with a five — never $4.37 paid with a $50. The Coins chips move the sheet from change from $1 up to change from $5, $10 and $20.

Counting back change, on paper

With Count-up steps switched on, each row prints the change coins and bills above a row of empty boxes. The student writes the running total under each one — 3.70, 3.75, 4.00, 5.00 — which is exactly how a cashier counts change back to a customer, and exactly how a child can check their own answer without subtracting. Switch the steps off and the row becomes a plain subtraction: price, amount paid, one box.

Counting up is the reason this method is worth teaching. Making change from $20.00 by borrowing across four zeros is a place-value obstacle course; counting up from $17.95 to $20.00 is a nickel and two dollars. Strips are capped at six steps so no row turns into busywork.

For adult and life-skills learners

Nothing on the printed page names a grade, and there are no cartoons or mascots — the same sheet works for a 3rd grader and for an adult learning to handle US cash. Under More options, Large print raises the type, enlarges the coins by half again, and gives 25 mm boxes for people who need more room to write.

See also: all counting money worksheets · counting coins worksheets · 2nd grade money worksheets.