The Game of Life | Math Exploration
- PDF
- Easel Activity
What educators are saying
Description
PURPOSE:
This simulation gives your math class a chance to experience what it is like to be an adult. Students will be randomly assigned a job and a family and be required to calculate a month’s worth of expenses.
This activity brings up some great discussions about how money works, what happens when the money runs out, single parenting, managing a budget and so much more. This is such a useful resource for the modern middle school mathematics teacher!
WHAT’S INCLUDED:
This product contains:
✏️ 18 pages with instructions for 2 versions of the activity (one where expenses have been fully laid out for students and the other where students research the average cost of monthly expenses using provided links)
✏️ Printable Dependents Cards
✏️ Printable Job / Career Cards
✏️ Printable Page of QR codes for students to use
✏️ Student Page
✏️ Example Student Page
✏️ An assignable Easel activity
STORY:
One thing I have found while working with sixth graders is that they do not have the greatest ways to access money sense and building a foundational knowledge of how the adult world of "incomes" and "expenses." So I decided to create a simulation for my students where we assigned everyone a random job, salary and family status. From there, they had to calculate what a monthly paycheck would look like factoring in taxes. The under the expenses side of things, students go through and calculate everything from groceries to gasoline, insurance to cell phone bills to realize how well off they would be in the real world with their given professions.
POSSIBLE EXTENSIONS:
After doing this activity once in our class, the students begged for more. One year, I just did the whole activity over again with new jobs and families to give everyone another chance at earning the most money. There are plenty of great discussions that are brought about from this activity.
MATERIALS/PRE-REQS:
Besides this file, you may require:
✏️ Computer with internet access
*********************************************************************
RELATED INNOVATIONS from Mr. Kugie’s Curriculum
Categories:
Products:
☆ Real-to-Life Classroom Economy System | Math Class Structure
☆ The $100 Mall Visit | Math Exploration
*********************************************************************
