New School Montessori (6-9) teacher Catherine Bollmann loves those moments when her younger students ask her to modify a work so that they may take part in it too. This was the case when Catherine designed a 3rd-level math lesson on budgeting. The work was filled with word problems all centering on planning for a child’s own birthday extravaganza at the Four Brothers Theme Park with a certain amount of imaginary money.
Each exciting opportunity (admission to the park, tickets for rides, purchases for friends at the restaurant and souvenir shop) involved multiplication, addition and subtraction. And at the top of each page, the running total was carried over so that the birthday planner could budget for the next experiences at the park.
At the end of the exercise, Catherine encouraged her students to draw pictures and describe what they were planning to do with the extra money they had set aside. Some talked of giving their money to their siblings, buying food for the poor, or buying a desk or an iPad. One student wanted to invest it, but didn’t know what investing really meant. Another lesson was drawn up by Catherine to explain how the stock market works and yet again, the younger children clamored to have the work modified so they could also do the math work that dealt with the stock market.
