Make Your Own Bottle Top Money

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Making play bottle top coins is a fun craft for children 3 and older. You can use play coins to teach children different value amounts or to carry out simple math equations.

My kids love to play store, restaurant, tea party and dress up! Not only do they love the play food but they love the play money. In fact, they have a store they like to call Moon Coins. They say it is the opposite of Starbucks. Aren’t they funny!

I have been collecting bottle caps for months with this idea in mind. My kids love games that involve counting.

One of their favorite games to play involves buying and selling their toys from each other. However, in our case, it is more like bartering. I will trade you that plastic zucchini for your hero action figurine.

My kids end up with huge piles of plastic food, dolls, puzzle pieces, and random toys on the floor. Heck!! You name it; we have probably bartered for it. I bet you could say we are a lot messier than the New York Stock Exchange (so to speak).

So, why have I been collecting bottle caps?

I thought it would be a great addition to our buying/selling game. This time with play money. Plastic bottle caps have now been turned into coins. I even found this GREAT website for printing paper money (Prints in increments of $1, $5 & $10). I really like the idea of using different colors for different increments of money.

Playing with pretend money is a great way to introduce and learn about concepts relating to money and value.

What you will need

Sharpie Markers

Extra Plastic Bottle Caps – 4 different sizes for each denomination. I try to keep the size and color the same as well.

Free Paper Money Printable

How to Make your Bottle Cap Money

What is so great is that this only took me less than 10 minutes to make! I love easy crafts like this! I marked the “coins” with corresponding monetary amounts. Teaching your kiddos about money can be FUN!! Even though my children are 5 & almost 4 years old, you can never teach them too early.

They already understand the concept of money. They need it in order to purchase the items they want. My husband has even taught them that, “he goes to work to make the money for the bacon”.

Yes, we have HUGE bacon fans in our house.

Another idea is to mark the bottle caps One through Ten and allow your kids to put the caps in order.

You can increase the number length according to your child’s learning pace. You can even use the alphabet to help with letter recognition. The ideas are endless.

Warning

Young children should not play with small objects as they can put them in their mouths and choke. Always supervise children when making small craft items and remove small objects after play or craft time.