Shopping Spree!

Math, math everywhere...
I had excellent examples in my Dyad of putting math and science into real world applications. This was a fun and exciting part of my experience. My colleague and I have switched out of this Dyad so we will no longer have the fun and unique science and math experiences we were getting. Instead we are seeking a humanities endorsement so we have found a classroom that is more focused on such. We are both looking forward to that, but I find myself reflecting on how I will miss the good examples of applying math that our first teacher had begun to show us.Of the many fun ways she used math in her class, one of the easiest ones to replicate and bring into another classroom is a shopping spree!

The class was given $500 as their "shopping spree". They had fake money and they were to look through magazines and online stores to find whatever they'd like to spend their money on. They had to record each item they and recalculate their total money left over after each. There were to try and have no money left over. Tax was the most interesting part of this experiment. Students were fascinated with how much this changed their amounts. As they calculated the tax themselves, they became more aware of how much they were actually paying in taxes. There were a few restrictions on their shopping to ensure they got the most out of the experiment, i.e. buying two or three of one item and a minimum of five things etc. The students were able to shop where they wanted, and see how far they could really make $500 go. I think it was great for these little middle schoolers. Amongst the math and planning skills they practiced, they were able to see just how much the materialistic things they want actually cost and how to find alternatives. Very interesting to see how surprised they were to see how much an IPod really is when shopping online...
The students loved the activity, and it was exciting to be a part of as a teacher (or student teacher if you will)! I would love to see how different classroom in different areas partake to this experiment, what things do they look to buy etc. Or I wonder what thoughts and understanding it would bring if they had to use the money to feed their family for a month...hmmmm