Teaching math with money builds an essential life skill. It’s one of those functional skills that really supports students with disabilities to be more successful in the postsecondary. Including real work math examples and using math to solve real world problems goes a long way in helps students be financially literate and independent.
So how do we make all that magic happen?
Here are three wonderful activities I use over and over again when teaching math with money.
FAST FOOD MENU MATH ACTIVITIES
One thing I know for sure… my students LOVE this center. Love, love, love! And there’s one simple reason why. Because they all love to eat out at their favorite restaurants. That’s why pairing fast food and money math into one center in your classroom will be your ultimate #TeacherWin
If you’re working on a money IEP goal, teaching decimals, or even identifying numbers and 1:1 correspondence, with all the levels in this activity it’s a must have teacher tool.
Check out more about that here. If you want to read more about it, then check out this blog post.
PERSONAL FINANCE DECISIONS
Most of my students live in a financial fantasy land. They think if they get a job at their favorite store or local fast food restaurant, they’ll have the money they need to live that Insta-Glam life. For those of us who see that paycheck come in one day and fly out the next we know. MONEY JUST DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT.
So how do we teach that lesson to our students? Well, this month-long financial decision activity is perfect for that. Students pick from a set of jobs that include full and part time, outdoor and indoor, mechanical and clerical. What do they all have in common? They’re all pretty entry level positions or manual labor.
Hey, you remember way back when you were a teenager, right. You weren’t exactly CEO material. We all know from our real world experience what job options are available to tees fresh out of high school. The job options reflect that.
I love to have students investigate the jobs a little bit and pick out ones that they may actually like to connect to prevocational career exploration. It’s a wonderful companion activity. Once students pick their job, they have to pick their life.
Students will decide where they’re living, if they are having kids, getting a car, or dating. All these decisions will impact how much money spend during the month. And they also reflect the reality of real-world money math.
Better than a Worksheet
Because you can replay this with different jobs and different choices, this kind of math with money decisions that relate to personal finance has endless possibilities. I love it do it as a math warm up every month for an entire semester. It really builds a student’s capacity to understand money, do real world math, and build financial literacy.
GROCERY STORE MATH ACTIVITIES
You know one place we all tend to go pretty often, no matter where we live or our demographic? The grocery store. It’s kind of a universal experience we all have. Roaming the aisles for the goodies on our list (or whatever calls our bellies). It’s amazing to me how few teachers capitalize on that and use it more in the classroom.
One of the activities I use in the classroom (but also rely on when my students are out in the community learning) are these grocery store flyer task cards. Why do I love them so much?
- They work with any grocery flyer.
- They have a ton of subskills students need to target.
- They work as a classroom-based activity, as an online shopping task during tech, and as a community-based scavenger hunt.
- AND, they are reusable, not consumable. Prep once and keep ‘em rolling.
These are a great way to work on math with money skills that connect to a student’s real-world experience. They also help to reinforce budgeting skills and price comparison. Whoop, whoop!
How to Teach Math with Money
There you have it. If you want to teach math with money, check out these three broad areas where money activities can help reinforce math skills and also develop financial literacy and functional independence.
You can find the resources pictured in this post in the Noodle Nook store on TPT or at my site store.
