Title – Budgeting with Percents

By – Tasha Wray

Primary Subject – Math

Secondary Subjects – Computers / Internet

Grade Level – 7-8

Instructional Objective: Students will use percents, calculate percents, and visually represent percentage values.

Standards: Number Sense and Operations/Geometry/Algebra

Previous Days Lesson: Solving word problems with percents

Prior Knowledge Required: converting fractions to decimals to percents, writing algebraic equations, measuring angles, using a compass

Materials: pencils , markers, calculator, large manila construction paper, protractor, compass, and a ruler

Duration: 2 – 4 periods (depending on the ability of students)

Summary of Lesson Outcomes: students will use a real world application to further their understanding for the purpose and reason of using and learning percentages. Students will learn how to create a budget. Students will learn how to use software applications to create pie graphs to represent percentages.

Aim: How do we solve percent problems? How can we use percentages to solve everyday problems?

Warm-Up:

You have to choose a job and an apartment out of the newspaper, the classifieds, internet or any source where an opening for a job can be posted. (At this point, you should have done this part weeks ago)

If you have not found a job or an apartment, your hourly wage will be $5.45 an hour (realistic – likely to happen) and your rent will be $400.00 if you choose to share an apartment and $800.00 if you choose to live alone (know that the amount required for this project for your rent is very unrealistic — not likely to happen)?

Do Now:

Determine your monthly budget by

1) First determine your salary for a day (depending on how many days you are going to work per day. No more than 10 hours per day.

2) Determine your salary per week by multiplying your daily salary by the numbers of days you plan to work per week.

3) Lastly determine how much money you would make in a month.

Lesson:

What is 20% of your monthly income? Subtract the 20% value from you monthly income? The 20% represents the taxes you must pay every time you get paid.

Vocabulary:

Gross income – what you get paid before taxes are deducted

Net income – what you get paid after taxes are deducted

Making a Budget

Make a list of items, things or necessities that you would need each month

Then determine how much each item would cost and add the cost to your list

Make sure that all of your items in your list must add up to your total monthly net income

Using Percents

Express each of your items in your budget as a percent of your total monthly income (the same way that you did for Eli’s budget on page 63 in the “Measuring Up” workbook)

You must show that you can convert , which means you start off with a fraction, then a decimal, then finally you arrive at a percent value, all of which must be shown in your work.

Technology

Using percents to create a pie graph in Microsoft Excel

1) First enter the name or title of each category – Column A (adjust the column)

2) Enter plus sign then fraction value to represent the percent for each category in column b next to the title (adjust the columns)

3) Highlight Column B, go to format, click on percentages, and change the decimal amount to 2 decimal places

4) Then click on the icon for graphs, choose pie graph

5) Click next, and then type in the name of your pie graph

6) Then save your pie graph, and the copy it

7) Go to Microsoft word and paste your pie graph

8) Type and answer the following questions underneath the picture of your pie graph:

Questions:

What percentage of your monthly budget was not spent on clothes and entertainment?

Did you have enough money in your budget to start a savings account? If so how much money do you get to save each month?

Based on your monthly budget how long would it take you to save $5,000?

The largest percentage of your money was spent on which category?

What would you do to change your expenses or income each month?

Homework: Ask students to create a circle graph which reflects the percentage of time they spend on each activity during a 24-hour day. Express the time spent on each activity in whole hours.

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Tasha Wray

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