Cash Bash Review

I've had the pleasure to review several products from Learning Resources.  I received the Cash Bash Electronic Flash Card several weeks ago.  I decided this product would be a perfect fit for my second grade students

Cash Bash is a hand held electronic game for independent practice.  Students worked to race against the clock which is set at 60 second rounds.  The game provides different levels to meet the needs of varying abilities.

Level one works on simple coin combinations.  The flashcard produces an amount digitally and students are to use the coin buttons to add up the value.  I noticed my lower performing students having challenges recognizing the coins.  Some students are still working to identify the coins and their values while others are working on combining values.  The coins are represented with the heads of the presidents and the picture was a little challenging to see.  However, the coins are proportioned to represent the size attributes of a coin which can help with identifying the values. 

When observing students, I noticed the kids were not counting efficiently.  Since this is a timed game, we discussed how much time was wasted counting by 10s when they knew how to count by 25s.  We timed a round skip counting with lower values.  For example: when counting to 85, we used 10s and 5s.  Then we timed a round counting efficiently and noticed skipping by higher values was time productive with more flash cards solved. 

Level two incorporated the dollar bills with the coin combinations. The dollars were easily identified with their value on the bill.  Each of the combinations represented were under 20 dollars.

 I love the option of having music or being able to put the game on mute by turning off the sounds. The additional sounds are interesting but can be distracting in a hard working classroom. Overall, the kids were eager to play and race the clock to solve the most combinations.