Buying paint for a project
You need paint for one poster. A small pot is $2. A big pot, four times the size, is $5. You will use about a small pot’s worth.
Which do you buy?
Life Skills · Practice · Grades 3 to 5
Chapter 1: Money
The cheaper one is not always the better buy.
The cheaper one is not always the better buy.
These are pretend situations for practice. Real money decisions belong to your family.
2 situations to decide. There is often more than one good answer: pick one and see what happens.
Buying paint for a project
Which do you buy?
Cheap means the price is low. Good value means you get a lot for the price. They are not the same thing.
Value is how much you get for what you pay.
Two bags of different sizes cannot be compared by price alone. Work out what one of something costs in each, and then they can be.
A bigger pack is usually better value. Not always — and if you cannot use it all, the value goes in the trash with the rest.
These ones do have right answers.
1 of 2
6 apples for $3. How much is one apple, in cents?
2 of 2
A big box is better value per cookie, but you will only eat half before they go stale. Is it still the better buy?
Same thinking. Different situation.
Choosing a club
Which is better value?
Question 1 of 1
Two things cost the same. One is twice as big. Which is better value?
Something to do away from the screen. Nobody is checking.
Why: Doing it once in a real store makes the shelf labels start to mean something.
Unit pricing is arithmetic the child already has by Grade 3, applied somewhere it pays. The obstacle is not the division; it is knowing that division is the thing to do.
Watch for "bigger is always better value" learned as a rule. It is usually true and it is not always true, and a child applying it to something perishable has learned a rule rather than a method.
The supermarket does this sum for you on the shelf label. Pointing at one is worth more than a worksheet.