Taxes, Budgets, and Bills Oh My! Update: 10/22-10/26

Good afternoon 5V Math families. The students are beginning unit 2 (Computation of whole numbers and decimals) this Monday. With that said, we are weaving an ambitious theme as part of the context that will carry the lessons.

"Ambition is the last refuge of the failure"-Oscar Wilde (Ironic Twist?)

When we study the concepts from the common core standards and use our math practices, we will apply the skills in a meaningful context of finance. Each child will be given an occupation and with that a corresponding yearly income. They will be responsible for calculating tax on income, sales tax on imaginary grocery shopping they do, and use their earning to manage a monthly budget that will account for utilities and other purchases.

Within the process I plan to give them some background on how to buy a home and a car. I'm no financial expert, let's get that straight, and I know the tax bracket workings can be complicated, but my goal is for the student to get practice applying the computation skills with relevance to everyday life. We won't (nor can/should we) get into specifics, but I think the kids will enjoy the practice of balancing a checkbook register (or something in that form), learning about down payments, calculating sales tax, and car shopping among others.

Like I said, the skills will be weaved through this context. Assessments will be made on executing the skill itself as well as application of the skill in the age appropriate format. In other words, no one will be penalized if they can't balance their checkbook. But I will look for meaningful ways to assess their ability to add, subtract, multiply, divide, and use exponents. Please refer to the email about the standards and learning outcomes I sent on Friday!

Here is a tentative schedule for this week's skill practice:

Monday: Understanding percents,  multiplying decimals, and subtracting (decimals too)
Tuesday: Understanding percents,  multiplying decimals, subtracting, and  dividing (decimals)
Wednesday: adding, subtracting, dividing (with decimals too)
Thursday: Small groups 
Friday: TBD