Counting Change

At a school bake sale, Brian and Chris buy lemonade, brownies and cookies with their pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters, while woodenly delivering lines like "counting change is easy with a little practice." Combining live-action and limited animation, this low-budget effort points out various coinage equivalencies (we're told, for example, that a quarter equals 25 pennies, but not--oddly--that two nickels equal a dime), after which Brian and Chris make their purchases in the most perfunctory, humorless manner imaginable. Curriculum-based materials don't have to be a laugh riot, of course, but they do need to recognize their target audience, and Counting Change, with its bake sale/lemonade/cookie motif, comes across as dated (although the inclusion of the 2000 dollar coin--without, unfortunately, any qualifying remarks about it being an absolute flop--assures us that the program is new). For my two cents worth, a far better introduction to financial transactions for youngsters would be Max's Money Adventure (VL-11/00). Not recommended. Aud: K, E. (R. Pitman)