Starter Activity: The Budget Basket

A while ago, I blogged about a really good activity for helping to teach budgets. It was called the wedding planner and can be found here. However, this is another similiar activity that can also be used to help teach the concept of budgets.

At a recent TBBLE conference we talked about ways to ‘hook’ the students into the lesson before we move onto the more formal aspects of the content. This activity does just that.

At the start of the lesson, I put the students in pairs/ 3’s and tell them that I want them to go to Asda to buy me 10 items. They need to work out my shopping budget. I use items such as Heinz Baked Beans, 4 pint carton of milk, a dozen eggs, a loaf of bread etc etc.

I ask them to consider the price of each item and then work out my total budget, how much I need for my visit to the shops.

Then, on my IWB, I go to the Asda website and simply type in each item to find out the current price (this is also good as you will find that there will be loads of different brands at different prices so you can draw out some good stuff there). The students are always amazed at how much things actually cost. Depending on where you are with the teaching, you can then get the students to work out the variance of each item and then a total variance.

Once you have this information, you can then draw out some of the consequences of poor budgeting. For example, I always say that if I take too much to the shops then I end up buying things that I don’t actually need therefore wasting money. On the other hand, if I don’t take enough then I can’t buy all the items and need to make some difficult decisions or may end up buying lower quality food.

Bingo, you can now move onto the more ‘riveting’ stuff…