shopping


  • Estimating Prices of Common Items

    Estimating Prices of Common Items

    Google Slides for helping students estimate prices The Google Slides (link at bottom of page) has an editable text box to allow educators and parents to enter items for estimation (below, top). Several items can be included in a single Google Slides (below, bottom). If a student has an unreasonable response, a follow up activity…


  • Overspending Activity at B&N

    Overspending Activity at B&N

    Budgeting and explaining the act of overspending are complex topics to address. This post details an authentic experience for overspending, but in a safe setting. Background I have previously posted about a running bank balance, gift card balance, and a comprehensive set of budgeting activities. These are activities that simulate various aspects of budgeting. When…


  • Running Bank Balance Activity

    Running Bank Balance Activity

    The use of cash as a payment method is declining. This has implications for how we teach money, consumer math, and life skills math. This is especially true for students with special needs who need more concrete representations of math. This post presents an activity to practice with a running bank balance. Cash vs Card…


  • Gift Card Balance Activity

    Gift Card Balance Activity

    Shopping is surprisingly more complex that we realize for many students who are working on life skills math. Staying within a spending limit is one issue. The concept of a running balance is another. In this post, I detail an activity in which a gift card in real life and ones in simulations are used…


  • Weekly Food Budget Activity

    Budgeting is a challenging topic for many students with special needs. The process has many components, multiple steps, and involves application of money and shopping math topics. This post describes an activity to develop competence in budgeting by shopping for a food for a week with a money limit. Google Document The activity is presented…


  • Realistic Monthly Budget Activities

    Realistic Monthly Budget Activities

    I have found that most students have little understanding of the living expenses and take home pay. This post provides details of a monthly budget plan that is useful for all levels of students and can be customized accordingly. Here is a link to a Google Document with all components: job, take home pay, list…


  • Online Personalized Consumer Math Board Game

    Online Personalized Consumer Math Board Game

    The game is played on a Jamboard. There are moveable game pieces on the left (Lego figures chosen to mirror the players – no hair is me), along with movable bills. There is a white rectangle partially covering the cashier’s money. It is a moveable rectangle I use to reveal the money when the cashier…


  • Online Personalized Consumer Math Board Game

    Online Personalized Consumer Math Board Game

    The game is played on a Jamboard. There are moveable game pieces on the left (Lego figures chosen to mirror the players – no hair is me), along with movable bills. There is a white rectangle partially covering the cashier’s money. It is a moveable rectangle I use to reveal the money when the cashier…


  • Unit Cost and Actual Shopping

    Unit Cost and Actual Shopping

    I previously shared that grocery shopping has a lot of tasks that are overlooked. One is working with unit costs. There are two math tasks related to unit cost, interpreting what a unit cost is and computing the total cost for buying multiple items. When I take a student into a grocery store to work…


  • Unit Cost and Actual Shopping

    Unit Cost and Actual Shopping

    I previously shared that grocery shopping has a lot of tasks that are overlooked. One is working with unit costs. There are two math tasks related to unit cost, interpreting what a unit cost is and computing the total cost for buying multiple items. When I take a student into a grocery store to work…