Thanksgiving Budget Math Exemplar

Grade Level: 3-5 (if students need an easier version of this challenge, round prices of food items to even dollar amounts)

Skills: budgeting/various math skills

You’ve been sent to the store to do all the shopping for Thanksgiving dinner. You have $50 to spend.

Before you leave to do your shopping, you must budget your purchases- How many people are going to be at your Thanksgiving dinner, and how much of each type of food do you think they will eat? (Typically each adult gets one pound of turkey, and each child 1/2 pound)  Should you buy orange juice (healthy!) or soda (unhealthy!) or both? You need to make the choices that will keep the people at your Thanksgiving dinner happy. Below are your choices of foods to buy. You can buy as many or as few of each item as you want, but you must buy at least 4 different items.

thanksgiving challenge budget food choices

After you make your decisions, see if it fits in with your $50 budget. If not, you will have to make adjustments. When you’re done, write a paragraph explaining why you spent the money the way you did (and don’t spend it all on ice cream and chocolate cake!) Also be sure to determine how much money you will have left over.

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