Do your students need practice with money word problems? Are you sometimes rushed in the morning and need something quick?  I finally finished my update of the Supermarket Shopper, a classroom activity that is handy when you're short on time--and isn't that most of the time? The Supermarket Shopper is a versatile activity that can be used for elementary school students to practice addition, subtraction, (and multiplication and division). What I like about it the most is that it takes less than a minute  to be ready and can so easily provide differentiation.

Setting up the board does take a bit of time but once it is set up, it is good to go everyday with very little effort on the part of the teacher. If it is set up on a tri-fold it can easily be stored and pulled out again when needed.

 

The supermarket is divided into four departments and each department has food items.

The food items are given prices. This is where differentiation comes in. Younger kids will have prices with lower numbers and more able math students will have prices with higher numbers. Complete directions for differentiation are included.

 

Four word problems are posted on the side of the supermarket board. Each day only the numbers need to change.  So teachers give those price cards a shuffle! Now the problems are different because the numbers are different. This provides repetition for students to learn how to solve word problems. After a few days four new word problems are posted.

 

Here a student is finding the amount of money to pay for a food item. The student must find the price of the item by looking on the supermarket board. Then the student counts out the correct amount of money. The coins are cut and pasted to the answer sheet. Students can work collaboratively to check their work.

 

Here is an example of a word problem sheet. The objective in this example is addition. An  objective can be practiced until students reach mastery. Many different objectives can be mastered using the Supermarket Shopper!

Kids love the Supermarket Shopper because it is different and fun!  If you think the Supermarket Shopper might make your life easier and motivate your students to enjoy a fun math activity, you can get a better look at A+ Kids.