Real Life Math | Living on a Paycheck <show description>
Here’s an alternative method of teaching consumer math. Students learn a wide range of math skills within a context of basic simulation. This format allows students to learn math skills in conjunction with one another, rather than in isolation.
All students can benefit from learning consumer math; however, for students who struggle in school, this approach might be the only way they will ever really learn needed everyday math skills. Students who have previously failed in math can succeed with this program because it offers an opportunity to learn by doing.
In Real Life Math, students learn to write checks and keep a check register— not for the sake of learning the skills but as a way to pay their bills and keep track of their finances in the simulation. Their individual checkbooks become a tool rather than a lesson. Skills are used repeatedly and reinforced by natural repetition. Bills are paid repeatedly throughout the program because paying bills is a repetitive event in life. This serves as a perfect learn–review pattern in the classroom. As students learn to function in the make-believe town of Willow, they truly learn to function in life.
Real Life Math provides an ideal consumer math program for students with learning disabilities in mathematics who are mainstreamed in general education classrooms with or without inclusion, and students who have the ability to write checks, budget, and make adult-life decisions who are in self-contained settings.
The instructional simulation is an ongoing role-play and includes 51 awareness assignments. Single-day directions have also been included for classrooms that are not conducive to full-fledged role-playing on a daily basis.
Within the simulation, students hunt for and choose apartments; they sign leases, pay security deposits, start paying rent, and buy starter furniture and basic household necessities. Students who think they will have trouble affording an apartment on their own can choose roommates and begin making joint decisions.
After filling out applications and being interviewed, students get jobs. They receive paychecks based on actual school attendance. For 70 simulated days, they budget their money to:
• Rent and furnish their apartments
• Pay bills
• Buy cars and gas fill-ups
• Buy groceries
• Pay for leisure activities
• Pay for medical care
• Take care of personal needs
• Buy clothes
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