During my practicum years ago I came up with the idea of printing out “play money” to deal with the grammar points “How much” and “How many.”
In the lesson I begin by explaining what each bill is called: 1 dollar bill, 5 dollar bill, etc. Then I go into the different between “money” and “bills.” I hand out the money randomly to students. They count up their money and then I ask them individually as a class, “How much money do you have?” “How many bills you have?” Sometimes I switch these up or add, “How many 5 dollar bills do you have?” Additional questions I ask later: “Do you have a lot of money?” “Do you have any _____ dollar bills?”
Depending on your class size, you may want to consider posting questions on a powerpoint and have them go around the room to ask peers. I have attached a sample of this below.
Keep in mind that this isn’t a pick up and go lesson. You must take the time to print out the money, cut it out, and mix it up. Once completed it can be used for multiple classes (I use it every time these grammar points come up). Focus on Grammar 1 and 3 have a unit based on How Much/How Many (Unit 26 and 17).
Powerpoint Possible Questions
PlayMoneyPrintable (looks similar to real cash)
Daniel,
Great activity! I used your slides and did this with my ESL 215 class. I did this after the food and amount/count/non-count noun lesson from World English Intro, Unit 9: Eating Well (pp. 112-113).
They had already interacted with play money during the clothing unit, so this was a great speaking exercise to review money and connect it with the new concept of count/non-count nouns. Thanks for sharing it!