Life Skills Math
Instructor: Mr. Tim Welch
Phone: 320-629-4160
E-mail: [email protected]
Length: Full year course
Credit: 1 credit per year
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Life Skills Math is designed to build a student’s consumer skills for independent living. The focus of the course is to help students apply math concepts that they will use in real life situations at school, home, or on the job. Students will review basic math concepts such as whole number operations, decimals, fractions, percentages, and ratios. Students will apply those basic math skills to real life situations such as earning money, managing money, using credit wisely, and comparison shopping. Students will also work on building vocabulary related to consumer topics covered in this course. This course is intended to be a year; however, students can earn ½ credit for each semester completed.
MAJOR TOPICS COVERED
- Place Value
- Whole Number Operations
- Protection against Identity Theft
- Using Decimals
- Using Percents
- Estimating and Counting Money
- Elapsed Time
- Earning Money
- Banking Services
- Using a Checking Account
- Budgeting
- Using Credit Wisely
- Protection against Identity Theft
- Comparison Shopping
- Using Fractions
- Using Ratios
- Using Proportions
- Measurement
- Basic Geometry
- Basic Insurance Needs
- Traveling
MAJOR LEARNER OUTCOMES
Students will:
- Round, estimate, and count money.
- Measure elapsed time to compute wages earned.
- Use percent to compute sales tax, discounts, and sale price.
- Compute simple and compound interest.
- Identify banking services available.
- Manage a mock checking account.
- Complete a budget sheet and set budget goals.
- Identify ways to manage money responsibly.
- Gain an understanding of credit and how to use wisely.
- Identify ways to protect money and identity.
- Gain an awareness of cost saving techniques when shopping.
- Identify resources available to consumers.
- Use ratios, proportions, and probability as they apply to daily living situations such as cooking, reading a scale drawing, and games of chance.
- Use fractions as they apply to daily living situations such as measurement and cooking.
- Identify basic customary and metric measurement including liquid capacity, weight, and length.
- Apply formulas to compute perimeter, area and volume to basic geometric shapes.
- Gain an awareness of basic insurance needs for independent living.
- Identify costs involved with traveling and reading related forms such as maps and bus schedules.
A variety of materials will be used for this course depending on student needs. Textbooks used are based on standards that correlate to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. The following textbooks may be used, in part, for this course:
- Life Skills Math, AGS publishing.
- Consumer Mathematics, AGS publishing.
- Mathematics Connections, Glencoe/McGraw-Hill publishing.
- NEFE High School Financial Planning Program, 2012
MATERIALS STUDENTS NEED TO BRING
Students should bring the following materials every day to class:
- Pencil
- Spiral bound notebook
- Basic calculator
Students may will earn a grade of Pass/Fail. Students need to earn at least 70% of the total points to receive a passing grade. Students will earn points for the following categories:
- Daily Work
- Special Projects
- On going assessments: quizzes, tests, and Math Concept Application Probes