The following three booklets and six virtual mathematics activities (11 PowerPoint files) were developed using funding from a Financial Literacy Grant from the Commonwealth Bank Foundation, for a 2008 project at Shalom Christian College in Townsville called Shalom Accelerated Numeracy. The booklets and virtual activities are based on financial mathematics material trialled by the researchers as part of a 2007 Australian Studies in Science, Technology and Mathematics (ASISTM) project, Using finance and measurement applications to improve number understanding of Indigenous students, conducted at schools in Aboriginal communities in central and southern Queensland.
The aim of the finance booklets and virtual manipulatives is to use money activities to reteach and reinforce students’ understandings of number and operations.
Finance booklets
Finance Booklet A: Creating a Shop
This booklet focuses on two-digit numbers, addition and subtraction, and the mathematics of shopping.
Finance Booklet B: Planning a Party
This booklet focuses on three-digit and decimal numbers, the four operations and the mathematics of planning a party.
Finance Booklet C: Developing a Family Budget
This booklet focuses on variables, multi-step problem solving and the mathematics of family budgets.
Virtual finance activities
These materials are designed to equip students with the ability to relate money (material) to the language and symbolic ($10, etc.) representation of it. The materials then continue on with practical applications of money that students would come across in the real world.
VFA-1A-Place-Value-Language-to-Materials VFA-1B-Place-Value-Materials-to-Language VFA-2A-Place-Value-Symbols-to-Materials VFA-2B-Place-Value-Materials-to-Symbols VFA-3A-Operations-Addition VFA-3B-Operations-Subtraction VFA-4-Operations-Shopkeeper-Subtraction VFA-5A-Operations-Multiplication VFA-5B-Operations-Multiplication-and-Subtraction VFA-6B-Operations-Division-and-Subtraction