Interest Rates

As Interest Rates keep going up, this is a good time to teach students how this affects them. I mention this to students and they shrug their shoulders and think it doesn’t have anything to do with them.

I try to explain that this can affect credit card payments. If a credit card isn’t paid off in full every month, interest rates are charged. This means you pay back what you have used plus extra money. The higher the interest rate, the more extra money that has to be paid. If this happens, there is less available cash available for fun.

If people have a house loan or a car loan, this could affect the monthly payments that are being made. If students are getting money from their parents for fun things, parents may have less money to give their children.

If people are paying more for their house loan and are renting this house out, the rent on homes may increase which again will cause the family to have less money to spend on fun things.

So even though raising interest rates might not affect a student directly, it could impact them indirectly. This is a good time to help students think of ways that they can help their family such as saving money, getting a part-time job, recycling things for other uses instead of buying new, using generic brand items instead of name brand items, and reducing waste.

What other suggestions would you make? Please share.

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

Experiencing Life

In An inheritance of experience from  Blue Skunk Blog, Doug Johnson talks about what legacy he wants to leave his grandchildren. He states, “…I do hope they will inherit is a taste for adventure, a love of travel, and the courage to try new foods and experiences.”

When my husband talked me into retiring as soon as we had the required years of employment completed, I was a little worried about leaving my wonderful career.

The statement that convinced me was when he said that he wanted us to travel while we were young enough and healthy enough to go where we wanted. If we got tired of traveling, I could always return to teaching. I had expected to return to teaching after five years though and didn’t even get rid of my boxed-up supplies and teaching materials during that time. Eventually, I realized that a lot of things I had were soon obsolete and out of date, so I let them go.

Now that I look back at the past twelve years, I realized that we had made the right choice. We have been able to make so many good memories and when we get in poor health, we will have these memories to look back on.

During our travels, I have been able to meet so many new people, learn about so many new cultures, learn new things, and have new experiences. This would not have happened if I had not retired.

It is so easy to stay where you feel comfortable and know what to expect most of the time. It is hard to let go of this and head for the unknown.

The more and more we head for the unknown and when each adventure is successful, it makes me more comfortable to try some more. If we hit obstacles or things don’t turn out as expected, we just look at it as a different kind of adventure.

I consider an adventure anything that doesn’t cause us bodily harm or break the bank. As long as we are together, our adventures are great ways to experience life.

It is hard to share this with my college students though because they have a huge world of “unknowns” in front of them. They are looking for security and paycheck that they can count on.

I just ask them to be open up to the idea about experiencing life. Don’t accept the comfortable if an opportunity comes up to have an adventure. Be open to new ideas. You don’t have to leave the country or even your own town for an adventure. Don’t let life pass you by.

How do you experience life? How do you convince your students to do this? Please share.

Photo by Catherine McMahon on Unsplash

When the Time is Right

I remember when I was young, my mother tried to teach me to sew, knit and crochet, but it just didn’t stick. I’m not even sure at that age that I even wanted to learn it. But she felt that I needed to learn it. At the time, I never really understood why I needed to learn these skills and my parents never

Now that I’m retired, I find myself knitting, crocheting and I’m just learning to sew. I wish I had paid attention to my mother when I was a child because she is no longer here to help me. I love knitting and crocheting things I can wear or give as gifts. I want to sew and make some things I’d like to have. In my earlier years, I didn’t have a need or a desire for these things.

When the time was right, it all came back to me. I’ve heard people talk about “It’s like riding a bike. It will come back to you.” They are right! I may not be great at the skill but some of it comes back into my memory. I might need to refresh my memory and sharpen my skills, but the basics are still in the back of my mind. I found out that I had muscle memory from learning to knit and crochet as a child.

I feel like teaching my students basic skills that they might find boring or not motivating is still necessary. They need to know the basics in order to learn more complex skills. They may not find it useful at this point in their life but later in life, the time may be right for these skills to resurface.

I also need to do a better job of explaining to my students why they need to know these basic skills. I need to have concrete examples of why and when they may use these skills when they get out in the real world.

I need to show students that the math skills they learn will be used in the lives in many different ways. Some of the situations may include finances like budgeting, saving, spending situations, cooking, gas mileage, landscape design, home décor, fashion, building construction, and travel.

Learning to read will help them gain information for learning or for fun. Reading instructions will be helpful to them for their who life. They may read newspapers or magazines to learn new information. They will read websites or even information with interactive games. Reading road signs will be important when they drive. Reading is a survival skill that will improve the quality of life.

History is important because if we learn from the past, we learn not to make the same mistakes. We can learn how to improve on the foundations laid by people before us. We can learn to make connections with others by knowing our history.

Science is important to learn why and how things work. We can also learn why and how things work together. We can use science to create new things.

These are just a few real-life explanations of how we use the skills we learn in school. Each topic can be broken down into more specific skills and explained in more detail.

How do you explain why you teach certain skills? Please share.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Grocery Shopping – Unit Lesson

Here is a lesson for grocery shopping which can be done at different skill levels in Grades 3-5.

Everyone goes grocery shopping as a step towards independence. Students who go grocery shopping need to learn how to check prices and total prices to make sure that they have the right amount of money. It is also important to decide which stores have the better bargains in order to save money.

1. The teacher will get grocery advertisements from the newspaper or online. It would be best to use several different grocery store ads. The teacher will cut out individual food items with prices.

2. Students who need to work on adding skills will choose the number of items as assigned by the teacher. The student will add up the items on paper, show the teacher, and then check their answers using a calculator.

3. Once the students master the addition skills, they will continue to the next procedure.

4. Students who need to work on multiplication skills will choose the number of items as assigned by the teacher. They will roll a die to determine how many of those items would be bought. The students will multiply the price by that number, show the teacher, and then check their answers using a calculator.

5. Once the students master the multiplication skills, they will continue to the next procedure.

6. Students who need to work on division will choose the number of items as assigned by the teacher. Students will figure out the unit price for each item. If the item is available in different grocery stores, the student will decide which store has the best price.

You can download the free lesson plan from HERE. 

Do you teach grocery shopping in your classroom? What activities would you add to this lesson? Please share.