Silas has been drooling over the Lego “Gray Avenger Ship” for months now, but recently decided he’d like to get the “Blue Avenger Ship” instead. We’re letting him earn money for simple jobs and {hopefully} teaching him some diligence, discipline and patience in the process.

The concepts of pennies, dollars, and how much things cost are rather hard for little people to wrap their brains around. So, the other day I created an earning chart for both boys. {Cooper is now earning his way towards buying the Lego “Fire Helicopter.”) I glued on pictures of the toys they want, and now the boys have a visual of just how many dollars they need to earn.

Since the pay is pennies at a time, I needed a way to track the boys’ earnings until they reached $1 to add to their chart. Using a variation of a Pinterest idea, here’s our counting-pennies Lego tracker. Each little circular “peg” represents a penny. An easy way to help kids visualize that 100 pennies make up 1 dollar.