I made this United States quarter collection board so my 7 year old could collect the coins from all 50 states. Since he spent the past year learning United States geography, I thought it would be a fun and educational summer activity for him. However, it’s my 5 year old daughter who has really caught the collecting bug. She LOVES matching the pictures from the quarters she finds onto her board and then taping them into place. She’s always checking quarters to see if they’re “special ones” and gets so excited when she discovers one she still needs for her collection. Her big brother is struggling to keep up!
If you wanted to extend this activity further, it turns out the U.S. Mint has free 50 State Quarters Program® lesson plans for K-6. My daughter keeps finding coins from the America the Beautiful Quarters® program, so we may need to start a collection for that soon too. I never realized, but it turns out there are also commemorative penny and nickel collections. Who knew?
If, like us, you are also studying U.S. geography, be sure to check out my United States toothpick map for a fun, hands-on activity for learning the locations of all the states!
Recommended Age Range: Kindergarten, Elementary, Middle School
Time Required: ~15 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Cost: Free printable, about a dollar for a piece of foam board
Materials:
- 2 sheets of paper for printing the United States quarters collection printable
- foam board (at least 11 inches by 16 inches)
- tape (we ended up using double-sided, but either will work)
- quarters!
Supplies & Tools:
- glue stick
- X-acto knife
- scissors
Instructions:
- Print out 2 pages of the Unites States quarters collection printable. Note that the first 2 pages are in color and the last 2 pages are black and white, so choose whichever works better for you.
- Glue the left page onto the upper left hand edges of the foam board.
- Cut off the extra little strip of paper on the second page as shown.
- Glue the second page onto the foam board, overlapping with the first page slightly to line up the letters
- Use an X-acto knife or other sharp cutting tool to cut off the extra foam board around the edges of the paper.
- Give your child a few coins to start their collection and let them find the states on the board. Readers can use the alphabetized names. Non-readers can match pictures.
- Use tape to attach the quarters to the board. We used double sided tape which had the advantage that if we wanted to switch quarters, we didn’t pull the tape off the board, just the quarter, but rolling up single sided tape works too.
- Make sure to push on the quarters to get them to stick.
Have fun with your new coin collection!
Click here for more Geography activities and printables for kids.
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Michelle has a PhD in Engineering from Stanford University and a Bachelor's Degree from the California Institute of Technology. 
Me encanto!!, soy coleccionista aficionado de monedas, y esta idea es fantástica….
Oh, thank you! I was searching for a pdf that showed all 5 coins. We homeschool, and I was going to make some type of notebooking page or just have them write in the names of each state and discuss what the pictures represent (for an age range of 8-15 year old kids).
You’re welcome! I’m so glad you can use it. :)
Thank you so much for this! So many people are off to make money from simple activities and I very much appreciate that this was available, scaled to appropriate size, and easy to follow tutorial.
You are so welcome, Angela! I’m glad you are able to use my free resource! :)
I love this! Is there any chance you know of a national park version of this?
Know, but that would be cool! Maybe I can put that together this summer. Thanks for the idea!