Your family has given you $30 for school canteen lunches this week. What will you buy, and how much can you save?
In this real-life budgeting task, Years 5–6 students read a realistic school canteen menu, plan lunches for Monday to Friday, work out daily and weekly totals, calculate change, and keep at least $3 for their piggy bank. They then graph what the canteen sold and solve two detective case files using clues from a lunch-order bag.
How it runs
- Lesson 1: the teacher slides set up the task and model a worked example
- Lessons 2–3: students work through the booklet on their own, step by step
- A self-check checklist and a certificate finish the task
Maths covered
- Adding and subtracting money, and working out change
- Multiplying quantity by price to find a total cost
- Making and reading a many-to-one column graph, and spotting a misleading graph
- NSW Mathematics K–10 syllabus: MA3-AR-01, MA3-MR-01, MA3-DATA-01, MA3-DATA-02
Good to know
- 2–3 lessons of 45–60 minutes
- Print the booklet in colour or in black and white
- Edit the slides in Google Slides or PowerPoint, and the booklet in PowerPoint or Keynote (fonts included)
- Australian money, spelling and prices
