I love, love, love when I can situate my math lessons in real-world contexts. Teaching financial literacy is such a great way to make math tangible and engaging. Unfortunately, I’ve found that it can be a bit difficult to find Canadian money worksheets for grade 5 or even upper elementary in general; they tend to skew younger. These financial literacy worksheets are perfect for big kids.
Elapsed Time and Canadian Money Word Problems Worksheets
I love a good story, so it shouldn’t be surprising that I adore math stories! This math story combines elapsed time and financial literacy. It follows a boy named Matteo who goes on a shopping trip and hosts a charity bake sale with his friends. The Canadian money word problems that make up the story require kids to subtract amounts, make change, and calculate the passage of time.
Party Planning Budgeting Assignment
Another contextualized math activity that my students always love is this party planning math assignment. To complete this assignment, students pick from a variety of party options, create a schedule, and plan a party while staying on-budget. For a writing connection, print the last page and have them describe their ideal party. To be inclusive, I intentionally avoided the word “birthday” because not all students celebrate birthdays. Students are told to imaging they have won a Dream Party contest, so they’re throwing a party just because!
Rounding Canadian Money Math Worksheets
Now, as an adult, I never carry cash and I take full advantage of my credit cards’ points programs. However, I recognize that kids don’t have credit cards, so they’re going to need to know how to round monetary amounts to the nearest coin or bill. This is something a lot of them really struggle with. Explicitly teaching kids how to round money is super important, because it’s not totally obvious to them. Especially if they’ve got the ‘magic five’ rule stuck in their heads! Making time to teach this skill using these Rounding to the Nearest 5¢ worksheets really helps!
And for fun…
I also have some Canadian money games and discussion prompts that I really love, but I’ll save those for another post. In the meantime, if you’re looking to grab any of these resources, you can find them in this section of my TPT store or clink any of the pictures or links above. They are also available as part of my Canadian Money Growing Bundle for Financial Literacy.
Happy teaching!
