Kōkiri Learn

Week 1 of 5

Where does money go? Needs, wants and the shape of a budget

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Session 1 · SOLVE: See the Pattern

The $50 challenge

  1. 10 minHook: you have $50 for a week. Here are 15 things you could spend it on. Choose quickly, then sort your choices into needs and wants.
  2. 15 minCompare choices in groups. Is phone credit a need or a want? What about bus fares, lunch, a gift? Notice that people disagree, and why.
  3. 15 minLook at a persona's spending for one week. What patterns do you notice? Where are the leaks (small, frequent spends that add up)?
  4. 10 minChoose your context and write the money question you most want to answer. Predict the answer.

Session 2 · SOLVE: Organise Information

Fractions, decimals and percentages of a budget

  1. 10 minThe budget steps: work out income, list what must be paid, find what is left, share the rest between saving, wants and emergencies.
  2. 15 minConvert: if $15 of a $60 weekly budget goes on food, that is 15/60 = 1/4 = 0.25 = 25%. Practise with a percentage bar.
  3. 15 minBuild a weekly budget table for your persona or context, with each category as a fraction, decimal and percentage of the total.
  4. 10 minWeekly to yearly: multiply by 52. Monthly to yearly: multiply by 12. Why can't you multiply a weekly amount by 4 to get a month?

Getting started

Use 10% as a building block: 10% of $60 is $6, so 5% is $3 and 25% is $15.

Stretch

Show your budget as a bar graph and a percentage bar. Which is easier to read, and why?

Checkpoint

A budget table that adds up to 100%, with each category shown three ways, and a yearly total.

Activities for this week

Useful this week