Making Change Worksheets

Practise giving change

Working out change is one of the most useful real-world maths skills. This generator builds worksheets where each problem gives the cost of an item and the amount handed over, and the student calculates the change. Amounts are realistic. Costs land on sensible 5p/5c steps and the amount paid is always a natural coin or note value larger than the cost. So the practice mirrors a real shop.

Pick pounds or dollars and the maximum amount, and an answer key is generated automatically for quick marking.

How making change works

Change is simply the amount paid minus the cost. The classic shop method is counting up: start at the price and add coins until you reach the amount paid. Both approaches give the same answer, and practising with realistic amounts builds the mental subtraction that underpins everyday money sense.

The options

• Currency: pounds (£) or dollars ($).
• Maximum amount: keep it small for early years or larger for bigger sums.
• Number of problems: short practice or a full page.
• Answer key, Name & Date: for marking and classroom use.

Putting it to work

1. Choose the currency and maximum amount.
2. Set how many problems you want.
3. Toggle the answer key and Name/Date fields.
4. Preview the live PDF, press Generate New for a fresh set, then download or print.

Teaching ideas

Start with amounts under £5 and change from a single note, then build up. Pair the worksheet with real or play coins so pupils can physically count up the change. For a challenge, ask pupils to list the fewest coins and notes that make each change amount.

Counting up beats subtracting

Shopkeepers do not subtract. Given a £5 note for a £3.65 item, nobody computes 5.00 − 3.65 in columns — they count up: 5p to £3.70, 30p to £4, then £1 to £5. Change is £1.35.

This method is easier and less error-prone for children too, because it avoids borrowing across a decimal point, which is where written subtraction of money usually goes wrong.

Teach it as a sequence of jumps to friendly numbers: up to the next 10p, then to the next whole pound, then to the amount tendered. Marking those jumps on a number line makes the method visible before it becomes mental.

Handling coins, not just totals

Knowing the change is £1.35 is only half the task. Which coins make it?

The efficient method — largest coin first — is worth teaching explicitly: £1, then 20p, 10p, 5p. Children left to themselves often produce thirteen 10p coins and a 5p, which is arithmetically correct and not how change is given.

Two extras worth practising. Ask for the fewest possible coins, which forces the largest-first strategy. And ask for a total made in more than one way, which shows there is no single right answer to "which coins" even though there is to "how much".

Real coins, or printed ones cut out, help considerably here. Handling the coins is a different skill from writing the amount.

Where children go wrong

Losing the decimal point. Treating £3.65 as 365 and subtracting from 500 gives 135, which is right — but only if the point is put back. Children who work in pence must convert back to pounds, and frequently do not.

Mixing units. Writing £1.35p, or £0.50p. It is either £1.35 or 135p, never both notations at once.

Assuming the change is smaller than the price. Paying £20 for a £3 item gives £17 change, which surprises children used to small examples.

Forgetting the 2p and 20p coins. Many children work only in 1p, 5p, 10p, 50p and £1, which makes fewest-coins questions impossible.

Making it real

Money is the topic where a role-play beats a worksheet most clearly, because the purpose is obvious and immediate.

Set up a shop with priced items and real or printed coins, and take turns being the customer and the shopkeeper. The shopkeeper role is the valuable one — it requires working out the change and choosing the coins, with someone waiting.

Add constraints as confidence grows: pay with an awkward note so the change is messy, buy two items so a total is needed first, or introduce a "no 1p coins" rule so amounts must be rounded and discussed.

Where currency differs, the method is identical — count up to friendly numbers — but the coin denominations change, so use the ones the child will actually handle.