Money Facts & Worksheets

People say that money can’t buy happiness; however, money can buy our wants and necessities. Money serves as a medium of exchange in almost all transactions.

See the fact file below for more information on Money, or you can download our 27-page Money worksheet pack to utilize within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

Introduction

• Most people cannot go out without money, whether physical money, digital, or cards.
• Some people prefer the convenience of bringing and using their credit and debit card for their purchases.
• Digital payments are now becoming a trend.
• Money is a medium used to meet needs, such as buying goods and services or even paying the salary of employees. 
• Since money measures the value of goods, it is also considered a unit of measure. 
• It can track the changes in the worth of items in multiple transactions.
• Money does not lose its value, so it is saved over time.

Brief History

• Before the invention of money, people used to make transactions using the “barter system”.
• This was the exchange of goods for other goods possessed. 
• The first type of money was goods, often agricultural commodities such as grain or cattle.
• However, the exchange posed various challenges due to injustices. 
• As a result, people started using things they deemed valuable and accepted as a medium of exchange.
• Most of the early currencies were from nature, durable, and handy in size.
• These included marine snails, tubular shell beads, and whale teeth. 
• The first coins were plain metal pieces and first appeared in the 7th century.
• About 2,700 years ago, the first gold, silver, and bronze coins were made in Turkey.
• The worth of coins depends on the material used to manufacture them.
• The first appearance of paper money, called a banknote that was invented in China, was a thousand years ago.
• The value of a banknote was printed on it.
• Paper money became well-known 250 years ago in Europe.
• During that time, banknotes were produced and issued by several banks.
• The value of banknotes is only valid if the bank has gold reserves that equate to their value.
• Paper money and coins developed until each country had its own currency.
• In the 21st century, mobile payments through electronic devices and virtual currencies have become popular and widely used.

How Coins Are Made

• In ancient times, coins were made from snippets of metal.
• They were made by striking a hammer placed over an anvil.
• The usual materials for the coins were alloys of gold, silver, copper, and electrum, bronze, and brass.
• Earlier coins were shaped in imperfect squares due to the hammers used.
• Medieval minting used round metal discs that were pre-formed and a screw press to produce coins.
• It requires more laborious work, but it results in a more consistent quality than the minting process in ancient times.
• Coins are made thoroughly in present times. 
• Modern coins are made using a hydraulic coining press.
• In the first step, the blanks or the round discs thumped out from a metal sheet are heated.
• Scraps of metal are shredded and recycled.
• The second step involves softening the blanks to create their form without breaking them, so the blanks are transferred to the annealing furnace. 
• Next, the blanks are washed and dried to get them to their original color and prevent them from tarnishing. 
• Upsetting is done to protect the coin from wearing.
• It upsets the edge of a coin to raise its rim. 
• The next step is stamping or striking to create the appropriate look of the coin. 
• After this, the coins are automatically dropped into a tray and examined by an inspector.
• They will only be distributed if they pass the error quality check. 
• The sixth step is packaging, in which the coins are counted and weighed.

How Paper Money Is Made

• Paper money involves a complex manufacturing process to make it hard for money to be counterfeited.
• In the US, paper money is produced with special ink and paper.
• Their paper is made of 75% cotton and 25% linen and is carefully tracked to protect it from counterfeiters.
• Each bill is printed with green ink on the back, and on the front are different ink colors depending on the bill.
• The ink and paper used are specially made by the US Treasury only.
• The first step to produce paper money is performing offset printing, where a huge printer that can produce 10,000 sheets of money per hour is used.
• The background is printed on each side of the bill and expected to dry in three days prior to the next stage.
• When the sheets are dry, they undergo intaglio printing, where some of the details of each design are added.
• Each side is printed separately. Details on the green side are added first, and after the sheet dries, the other side is printed.
• Paper money is also inspected in detail with the help of computers.
• If it passes the inspection, it will undergo overprinting for the serial numbers and seals.
• The last stage is stacking and cutting, where the sheets are stacked and cut into individual bills.  
• Whether it’s coins or bills, not everyone can create physical money.
• Only authorized government units are allowed to produce money.

Counterfeit Money

• Counterfeit money is fake money produced without legal authorization from the government or state. 
• The purpose of counterfeit money is to execute illegal transactions.
• Counterfeit money has been used in transactions ever since coins and paper money were introduced.
• It is hard to determine counterfeits from real money because they look similar. 
• Nowadays, there are tools used to detect counterfeit money. 
• The most popular and used tool is the UV counterfeit detection lamps seen in banks and stores. 
• The ink, watermarks, and texts on the money are intentionally different from each other as a security measure for people to recognize the money’s authenticity. 
• The US dollar is a frequently counterfeited currency.
• On the other hand, some of the least counterfeited currencies are the Kiwi dollar, 10,000 tenge of Kazakhstan, 10 rupees of Nepal, 50 pesos of Mexico, 1,000 dinars of Iraq, 1,000 kronor of Sweden, 10 dollars of Hong Kong, and 20 pounds in the UK.
• Through advanced technology, criminals can easily counterfeit money.
• However, a large amount of money is still required to obtain a machine for production and the materials needed to make counterfeit money. 
• Anyone caught making transactions with counterfeit money, whether they produced it or not, will automatically be punished by law.
• Punishments may lead to imprisonment or payment of a fine.

The US Dollar

• The US dollar is considered the strongest currency in the world.
• In 1944, it was assigned as the world’s currency by the Bretton Woods Agreement.
• The value of the US dollar is due to the strength of the US economy.
• Apart from the United States, other countries also use the US dollar as their official currency.
• The dollar is the currency of the United States that comes in seven denominations for notes – $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100, while 1¢, 5¢, 10¢, 25¢, 50¢ are the US dollar coins.
• Higher bills such as $500, $1,000, $5,000, and $10,000 are no longer produced and issued but are still probably in circulation. 
• The year of issuance is disregarded by US government policy; thus, all denominations issued from 1861 remain legal tender and are still valid. 

The World’s Strongest Currencies

• There are several different currencies in the world, but do you know which among them are the most powerful?
• Below is a list of some of the strongest currencies of all time:

Currency		Countries
US dollar	USD	USA, Zimbabwe, Ecuador, El Salvador, East Timor, Marshall Islands, Palau, Micronesia, Panama
Cayman Islands dollar	KYD	Cayman Islands
Gibraltar pound	GIP	Gibraltar
Swiss franc	CHF	Switzerland
Euro	EUR	Austria, Slovakia, Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Netherlands, France, Germany, Malta, Greece, Finland, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Latvia, Cyprus, Lithuania, Portugal, Luxembourg, Slovenia
Pound sterling	GBP	England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland
Kuwaiti dinar	KWD	Kuwait
Bahrain dinar	BHD	Bahrain
Omani rial	OMR	Oman
Jordan dinar	JOD	Jordan

Money Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle that includes everything you need to know about Money across 27 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use worksheets that are perfect for teaching kids about Money, which serves as a medium of exchange in almost all transactions.

Complete List of Included Worksheets

Below is a list of all the worksheets included in this document.

1. Money Facts
2. Money I Use
3. Money Around the World
4. Truth About Fakes
5. Odd One Out
6. Crossword
7. Money Maker
8. Money Changer
9. Currency
10. All About Money
11. Is It the End?

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