Balancing a Budget Station

During Math Stations today, we used a resource I created to reinforce balancing a simple budget.  This is another new TEK to 5th grade.  Students must be able to balance a simple budget.  I created a station that would allow students to have a job, have expenses and then the students would determine how many hours they would must work in order to balance their budget.

Some assembly is required 🙂 The teacher will need to cut up all the cards and put them into separate containers.  One container for “jobs” and one for “expenses”.  Then make copies of the recording sheet.

Once the materials are in place.  The students, working in pairs, draw 1 “job” card from the stack.  They record the job and the hourly pay on the recording sheet.

Then they draw 3 “expenses” cards.  The record the “expenses” and total the expenses.

From there, the students figure out how much they will need to work in order to pay for the 3 expenses that they drew.

My students did very well with this today.  Balance Your Budget Cards and Activity Sheet

I hope your students enjoy this activity as much as my students did!

Peace, Love, Math- Jennifer