Yudu - Connect Volume25 Issue3 January-February2012DRM

Classroom Finances Focus on Business and Budgets

by Francie Kugelman F

or the past eleven years I have taught fifth grade at a public school in Los Angeles. I enjoy incorporating life skills throughout the academic year, and many of the projects

my students work on simulate real-life situations, including creating budgets and handling money. When we study percentages, each of my students creates an advertisement for their

own store. Then we have a shopping day when their classmates can purchase the adver- tised products. This project was originally developed by two National Board Certified middle school math teachers in San Fernando, California. My students enjoy this project because they can imagine themselves with a store,

design an ad promoting the sale of their five products, and sell these products to their classmates. They have created ads for stores filled with products ranging from electric guitars, cupcakes, and puppies to cell phones and iPads.

Setting Up Shop

On Shopping Day, half of the class takes on the role of shoppers, and half are sellers. I print $5.00, $10.00 and $20.00 bills on green paper created from kidsmoneyfarm.com so the students can go shopping in the classroom. My students are thrilled to pretend buying an Xbox for only $27.00, and I

am happy to see that the student selling the item was able to calculate the 35% discount correctly. All students—gifted and talented, English language learners, and less proficient students—actively participate and engage in learning, selling, and shopping. After a round of sales, we add up how much money each shopkeeper has made,

then we start again so the students that were shoppers are now the sellers and vice versa. We discuss what made certain stores bestsellers while other shops were not as popular. I point out to the students that some stores had a lower price for a popu- lar product, but ended up making a profit because of the large volume of sales, while another shopkeeper was successful because there was a great demand for that particular product, even if the product was not bargain priced. I explain that some stores in our community use a business model based on high sales volume and low pricing (99¢ Only Store), while other stores can price their products high, and still sell a lot due to consumer demand (Apple Store). To test our understanding of these business models, we invite another class-

Students create posters to advertise their stores.

room to shop at our stores. After the profits are added up, we again discuss which stores were the most popular, and contrast our classroom’s favorite pur- chases with another classroom’s choices. We have found that the stores that sell cell phones, puppies, or gaming equipment are more popular than stores that sell clothes, musical instruments, baked goods, or candy. Because this project is focused on calculating the discount price based on the percent

off of products, I provide lots of scaffolding to students who struggle with math, so all they need to do is perform one easy computation using a calculator to determine the new, reduced price for each of the items for sale. On the other hand, for extra credit, high- achieving students can work on an enrichment activity by calculating the tax on the new sales price for each item they are selling.

francie kugelman