Creating a Budget- 12 Day Lesson Unit 

***Included in the Functional Math Curriculum

Budgeting is a skill students need to practice on a big scale (monthly budget) and small scale (lunch budget). Understanding and sticking to a budget is a part of real life and requires an understanding for how smaller budgets are created from balancing income and expenses.

This 12-day lesson unit focuses on creating a budget, whether students need to improve their awareness of adult expenses by engaging in a budgeting activity with surprise bills or prioritizing bills, then needs, and wants.

In the real world, students must pull the hard numbers of their income and compare that to their bills and spending to manage their money. While budgeting worksheets may address this personal finance skill, knowing whether a purchase is in budget and how to adjust a budget based on past spending is key to balancing a budget.

Mastering the budgeting skill requires more than a simple budget activity of deciding what to buy for lunch from a menu. It’s knowing how to map out bill due dates on a calendar to match income from paychecks to frequent expenses, and periodically comparing spending to a budget, and adjusting future spending to avoid overspending.

Created with teens and young adults in mind, students will see themselves through the questions and examples in this lesson unit.

Out with the old (meaningless budget worksheets) and in with the new (creating and then sticking to a budget), this Creating a Budget Lesson Unit will help you teach your students to understand how some bills change month to month and others stay the same, how to estimate future spending based on prior spending, and how to divide up a large monthly budget into weekly spending budgets!

Lesson Unit Skills Include:

• Identify expense areas to include in a personal budget
• Estimate anticipated spending based on prior knowledge of spending
• Apply overestimation based on prior knowledge of spending
• Identify which expenses may vary
• Identify the timing of bills and expenses vs timing of income
• Compare total expenses to total income
• Identify which sources of income will pay for specific expenses
• Identify costs associated with certain spending activities
• Make budget-conscious decisions
• Calculate spending total
• Compare total spending vs estimated spending
• Identify ways to reduce spending
• Identify how multiple small purchases add up

Lesson Unit Materials Include:

• Pretest
• Google Slide deck w/ videos
• Slide deck listening guide (for note-taking)
• Warm-up questions
• Reading passages (4 passages)
• Guided practice (4 worksheets)
• Independent practice (4 worksheets)
• Exit slips
• Boom Cards
• Review game
• Assessment (PDF + Google Form)
• Data collection
• Functional math skill spiraling worksheets
• Answer keys

Yes, ALL of that and there’s ZERO PREP! Just print and go! Perfect for new and busy special education teachers.

This resource is ideal for high school and transition age students receiving special education services.

About the resource:

• 126 Pages
• 126 Pages
• Complete, comprehensive lesson unit
• 12 Days worth of material
• Answer keys included
• Lower reading level for approachable learning
• Mature and age-appropriate graphics, colors, font, and design
• No prep, just print and go

Perfect for students in:

• High School
• Transition
• Life skills
• Resource
• Consumer math class
• Financial literacy class
• Personal finance class

Perks:

• Complete 12 day lesson- EVERYTHING you need is included
• Boom Cards!
• Automatic grading of assessment with Google Forms version

Reviews:

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ | Excellent Resource

This resource was perfect for my virtual students! It was easy to implement, well-organized, and kept my students engaged. Definitely a time-saver!

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ | Lovely easy to use

Love this. It is easy to use, low prep. Makes sense for everyone in my class and builds budgeting skills in a way that works

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ | Good resource

Thank you. Good resource to providing budgeting practice for my student who need it broken down and provided extra practice.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★  | Amazing Resource

This resource is so relevant to the needs in my class. I will definitely use more of this provider's resources.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ | Learning money

Made copies yesterday and worked on the first lesson with my students today. They loved it. Day 1 was great

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ | 

This is a great resource. My students loved this. Thank you for sharing this with me.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ |  Great lessons

This lesson worked great for my students and has everything that you need.