2nd Grade - Making Money

High up on my list of favorite second grade projects is dollar-designing Making Money.  For this project, we pretend like we are the president of the United States, but the rules have changed.  When we are president, we can do anything we want:  change laws, make up our own rules, change the name of the country, and, of course, make our own money with our faces on it.  The catch is that counterfeiters are trying to copy our bills and steal our money, so we have to load our designs with lots of secrets and details, just like the real government does.  We spend the first part of the unit taking a close look at some of the well-known secrets and security measures dollar bills have in place nowadays, then we start on our own.  We're sure to include the monetary amount, our presidential portraits, and as many secrets as we can pack in.  See if you can pick out some of them in these examples: