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I am passionate about emphasizing the real-world connections and applications in mathematics. Over the past several weeks, we have learned about decimals and percent, and we have explored realistic scenarios whenever possible. This week the students will have the opportunity to further extend their understanding of these topics as they create their own budget.
Each student will be assigned a budget to use to plan a party. Some students will have a larger budget and others won't have as much money at their disposal. Next they will have to break that budget up into categories (for example, they might decide to spend 20% of the total budget on food for the party). Students will calculate how many dollars they will have for each category, and then they get to go shopping! They will find activities, food items, decorations, and party favours that fit into their budget.
It is really interesting to watch as students realize they have to plan and shop carefully, and that they might have to make trade-offs to get what is most important to them. Last year some students discovered that if they had fewer guests, they could choose a more expensive activity (for example, visit the trampoline park or go to Playland). Other students decided that buying frozen pizzas from the grocery store instead of a restaurant would allow them to have enough money left over for decorations. Whatever their final decision, the skills used in this kind of activity are an age-appropriate introduction to financial literacy and the concept of budgeting.
Each student will be assigned a budget to use to plan a party. Some students will have a larger budget and others won't have as much money at their disposal. Next they will have to break that budget up into categories (for example, they might decide to spend 20% of the total budget on food for the party). Students will calculate how many dollars they will have for each category, and then they get to go shopping! They will find activities, food items, decorations, and party favours that fit into their budget.
It is really interesting to watch as students realize they have to plan and shop carefully, and that they might have to make trade-offs to get what is most important to them. Last year some students discovered that if they had fewer guests, they could choose a more expensive activity (for example, visit the trampoline park or go to Playland). Other students decided that buying frozen pizzas from the grocery store instead of a restaurant would allow them to have enough money left over for decorations. Whatever their final decision, the skills used in this kind of activity are an age-appropriate introduction to financial literacy and the concept of budgeting.