Coins and Notes

When you buy a comic or a bag of sweets, you pay with money. In Britain, money comes in two kinds: round metal coins that jingle in your pocket, and flat paper (or plastic) notes that fold up small.

1p coin
1p 2p coin
2p 5p coin
5p 10p coin
10p 20p coin
20p 50p coin
50p £1 coin
£1 £2 coin
£2

Those are all the British coins: 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 50p, £1 and £2. The letter p is short for pence — a little bit of money. There are also notes, for bigger amounts:

£5 £10 £20

The number written on a coin or note always tells you what it is worth. Line them up from smallest to biggest and the numbers climb in order: 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p, 50p, £1, £2, £5, £10, £20 — each one is worth more than the one before it.

Coins are just like number bonds

You already know how to make a number bond — splitting a total into parts, like 2 + 2 + 1 = 5. Coins work exactly the same way: to find out how much money you have, you just add the coins together.

Here are three coins in a purse: a 2p, a 2p and a 1p. How much altogether?

2\text{p} + 2\text{p} + 1\text{p} = 5\text{p}

It is the very same sum you already know how to do — the coins just happen to be the things you are counting. And two 50p coins make a whole pound: 50\text{p} + 50\text{p} = \pounds 1.

Count the purse

Here is a little purse with two or three coins in it. Add up the coins to find the total, the same way you add parts of a number bond. Press Refresh for a brand-new purse to count.

Look closely and you'll spot that the 20p and 50p coins are not quite round — they have seven curvy straight sides. That's on purpose! It means you (or a machine, or someone who can't see well) can feel the difference between coins just by touching the edge. The £1 coin has twelve flat sides of its own, and the £2 coin is made of two different colours of metal, like a gold ring around a silver middle. Every British coin has its own special look, so you never have to guess.

Two coin traps that catch out new counters:

A bigger coin is not always worth more. The size of a coin and its value are not the same thing — you can only tell how much a coin is worth by reading the number on it, never by how big it looks.
More coins does not mean more money. Three 1p coins look like more because there are three of them, but 1\text{p} + 1\text{p} + 1\text{p} = 3\text{p}, and that is still less than a single 5p coin. Always add up the value, not the number of coins.

Soon you'll learn to write amounts properly with a pound sign and a decimal point, and work out change when you pay with more money than something costs — but first, get to know your coins really well. That's exactly what Money and Giving Change is all about.