School Clothes Budget

Teacher's Page

Sheryl E. McCarty

Introduction:
The lesson is a problem for students to learn about buying on a budget. It gives students an opportunity to use math in a practical life application problem. The grabber for the students is: Your house has burned down and you need to buy new clothes for school. Your Grandma said she would take you to buy all of your undergarments and someone in the community has donated $200 for you to buy new school clothes. The local Internet company has offered your family a 40% discount on a one time purchase of clothes. Your assignment is to spend the money the best way you can.

Objective:
Students will be able to estimate what clothes they can purchase for their $200. Then students will go "shopping" at the Internet site and calculate the real cost of the wardrobe with the 40% discount and the 7.25% tax. The students will write an explanation of why and how they made their decisions of clothes purchases.

Evaluation:

The students will be evaluated on their completed actual cost's table. This table will indicate if the students did the calculations correctly.
The students will also be evaluated on their writing of why and how they did the problems to check for math reasoning.

Prior Knowledge:
Students need to be able to do addition, subtraction, and multiplication of integers and decimals.

Learning Advice:

The lesson can either be done as an individual or in groups of two or three.
The lesson will take two one hour periods.
The lesson can also be done in class without Internet if you do not have computer, by using store ads and/or catalogs as your "shopping" guides.

Resources:

Shopping site: http://www.shoppinglist.com/shoppinglist/default.asp?
Worksheet to be printed for each student: Student Worksheet (HTML) / Student Worksheet (PDF)

Process:

Discuss what a budget is and how to stay within spending limits.
Demonstrate how to navigate the shopping site.
Demonstrate use of a spreadsheet form.
Review or teach about % discounts and figuring of state tax.
Show students where the lesson is to be found and how to get to the student page.
Review expectations for the explanation write up.

Extensions:
Lessons on money management
Lessons on % discounts

Conclusion:
Some students do not think they need math skills in day-to-day living. This lesson is designed to help students realize the need of math in life. You may choose to have all scratch paper turned in with the write up. It would serve as proof of their own selection process and reasoning.

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California's Mathematics Academic Standards:

Grade 6:
Number Sense
1.0 Students compare and order positive and negative fractions, decimals, and mixed numbers. Students solve problems involving fractions, ratios, proportions, and percentages:
1.4 Calculate given percentages of quantities and solve problems involving discounts at sales, interest earned, and tips.

2.0 Students calculate and solve problems involving addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division

2.1 Solve problems involving addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of positive fractions and explain why a particular operation was used for a given situation.
2.3 Solve addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems, including those arising in concrete situations, that use positive and negative integers and combinations of these operations.

Mathematical Reasoning
2.0 Students use strategies, skills and concepts in finding solutions:

2.1 Use estimation to verify the reasonableness of calculated results.

NCTM Standards: