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Topic 5 – Savings and budgets

This primary school resource focuses on establishing strong foundations for learning about tax and super.

Last updated 27 February 2020

This primary school resource focuses on teaching values and actions to help establish strong foundations for learning about tax and super.

Topic 5 overview

Super talk

Saving money for big things in the future can be better than spending small amounts of money all the time – 'short term pain for long term gain'.

Learning intention

In this topic, students:

  • identify the difference between short-term and long-term
  • discuss preferred, probable and possible futures
  • understand their needs and wants
  • make informed decisions about spending, saving and sharing
  • calculate weekly and yearly costs
  • create a persuasive text about saving
  • explore how people earn money.

Focus questions

  • What do the terms 'short-term' and 'long-term' future mean?
  • What is the difference between 'my needs' and 'my wants'?
  • Why is saving a good idea?

Activities

  1. Introduction – daydreaming
  2. Extension – futures
  3. Needs and wants – sorting and prioritising
  4. Spending, saving and sharing – decision making
  5. Renaming numbers and place value – modelling
  6. Budgets – estimating and calculating
  7. The benefits of saving – designing an advertisement
  8. Reflection – the most persuasive advertisements
  9. Homework task – how do people get money?

Resources

Some resources are available as both a PDF and as accessible text. If a resource does not have a text version and you need an accessible version, email us at schoolseducationprogram@ato.gov.au.

Topic 5 resources

Australian Curriculum Connections

Content

  • English
  • Mathematics
  • HASS

General Capabilities

  • Literacy
  • Numeracy
  • Critical and Creative Thinking
  • Personal and Social Capability
  • Intercultural Understanding

Curriculum mapping

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Introduction – daydreaming

  1. Students add sticky notes to a roughly-drawn timeline of what they would like to be doing in 10 days – 10 years – 15 years. Encourage students to think of their lives in terms of:      
    • School/study
    • Work
    • Leisure

There are no limits to what they might dream up. For example, sleeping soundly, on a holiday, driving a sports car.

  1. As students share some of their goals, introduce the concepts of ‘short-term’ and ‘long-term’ future. For example, short-term is less than a year and long-term is over 3 years.
  2. Ask:      
    • Which of your dreams would cost money?

Extension – futures

  1. Introduce students to the concept of backcasting – working backwards from an ideal future to understand the actions that need to be taken to reach that point.
  2. Students select one of their goals from their preferred future and work backwards to decide the steps they need to take to achieve it (Resource 1 – PDF, 60KBThis link will download a file).
  3. Introduce the concept of preferred, probable and possible futures to students.      
    • Preferred future: What I want to happen
    • Probable future: It is likely to happen
    • Possible future: It might happen
  4. Read out wildcards one at a time and for each ask:      
    • In your view, does this scenario (wildcard) describe a preferred, probable or possible future? Why do you think this?
    • Will this scenario affect the preferred future you have identified? If so, how?

Wildcards

  • In the cities, most people live in high-rise buildings as the suburbs are too expensive.
  • Most offices have disappeared as most people work from home.
  • Robots and computers now do most jobs.
  • There are no longer shopping centres – all shopping is online.
  • There are no longer green spaces (including national parks) for people to exercise and relax.
  • There is no longer any cash in society and all financial transactions are done through smart devices.
  • Careers have changed. The career you planned may no longer exist.
  • Schools and universities move to students now.
  • There are no teachers or university lecturers as all learning is done online.
  • All endangered animals are now extinct.
  • Because of environmental changes, there are no longer any flights to anywhere.
  • Motor vehicles are driven by robots with a maximum speed of 60 km per hour.
  • There is no longer money for the government to provide benefits to people who need it (for example, aged-pension, unemployment benefit, disability allowance).
  • Students select two wildcards that they think are probable and will affect their goals and adjust their timeline of preferred futures by removing and adding sticky notes.

Needs and wants – sorting and prioritising

  1. Introduce the concept of needs and wants. Explain that needs are things we must have to survive, to be healthy, to be safe and to learn. Wants are things we would like to have because they make our life more comfortable and satisfying.
  2. Use a grouping strategy to organise students into groups of four.
  3. Students sort cards into needs and wants (Resource 2 - PDF, 66KBThis link will download a file).
  4. Give students 2 minutes to select the 6 most important cards.
  5. Groups share their list of most important cards with the class.
  6. Ask:      
    • Was it difficult to select some items over others? Why or why not?
    • How did you decide which items were most important?
    • Did your 6 most important cards come from the ‘Needs’ cards? Why do you think this is the case?
    • Why should some needs be protected as rights?
  7. Give students 5 minutes to organise their wants cards from most important to least important.
  8. Ask:      
    • Did everyone agree with the way the cards were ordered?
    • Why are wants different for different people?
    • What is the difference between needs and wants?

Spending, saving and sharing – decision making

  1. Give students ‘Meet Burnie’ Resource 3: meet Burnie (text version) or PDF (101KB)This link will download a file.
  2. Students:    
    • determine pros and cons of Burnie’s options
    • explain what he should do and why
    • decide on details of Burnie’s spend, save, share option.
  3. Discuss answers as a class.

Teacher tip

Students can choose more than one option.

Renaming numbers and place value – modelling

Model how to rename numbers.

  1. 10,000 can be renamed as:      
    • 10 thousands
    • 100 hundreds
    • 1,000 tens
    • 10,000 ones.
  2. 247 can be renamed as:      
    • 2 hundreds, 40 tens and 7 ones
    • 2 hundreds and 47 ones
    • 24 tens and 7 ones
    • 247 ones.

Teacher tip

Use number expanders to support students. Let them write their own three-, four- or five-digit number and use the number expander to rename it in as many ways as they can.

  1. Model how to use place value to help with multiplication, e.g. 53 × 28
  2. Model using place value to estimate, e.g. 70 × 47      
    • Explain that since 47 is about 50, we can estimate the answer to be about 3,500. 

Budgets – estimating and calculating

This activity may contribute to student portfolios.

  1. Put the following scenario on the board:      
    • Kiandra’s family spends the following on food each week:      
      • Meat – $103.00
      • Fruit and vegetables – $65.00
      • Take-away - $31.00
  2. Model using place value to add.
  3. Model how to estimate.
    Over 4 weeks, Kiandra’s family spends about $800 (because $199 is almost $200)
  4. Model using place value to multiply.
    How much does Kiandra’s family spend in a year? (199 × 52)
  5. Students complete the budget scenarios worksheet (Resource 4 – PDF, 128KBThis link will download a file).

Extension

Invite students to design a survey to find out more about how people budget and why.

The benefits of saving – designing an advertisement

This activity may contribute to student portfolios.

  1. Invite students to think about what they have learnt about the benefits of saving.
  2. Explain to students that they will design an advertisement that convinces other kids to save.
  3. Explain that advertisements are persuasive texts that may use:      
    • Images that appeal to feelings and emotions
    • Slogans that are catchy and memorable
  4. Provide examples of slogans to students such as:      
    • McDonalds – I’m Lovin’ It
    • KFC – Finger Lickin’ Good
    • Subway – Eat Fresh
    • Kit Kat – Have a Break, Have a Kit Kat
    • Skittles – Taste the Rainbow
    • Mentos – Stay Fresh
    • Jeep – I bought a jeep
    • CBA – Commbank can
  5. Invite students to provide more examples of slogans.
  6. Use a grouping strategy to organise students into pairs.
  7. Give students magazines or newspapers and ask them to choose one effective advertisement and identify:       
    • the product/service being advertised
    • the target audience
    • the image and/or slogan used
    • their personal reactions (what I think, how it makes me feel).
  8. Pairs share their findings with the class.
  9. Record student responses on the board in four columns.
  10. Invite pairs of students to write and design an advertisement that convinces other kids to save. Their advertisement must include:      
    • an image that evokes emotions (the image may be sourced from magazines or the internet)
    • a catchy memorable slogan.

Teacher tip

ASIC’s MoneySmart Teaching has a comprehensive unit of work on advertising for this age group – Advertising detectives (PDF, 336KB)This link will download a file.

Reflection – the most persuasive advertisements

  1. Invite students to share their advertisements with another pair of students and then the whole class.
  2. Ask:      
    • Which advertisements were particularly effective? Why?

Homework task – how do people get money?

Invite students to ask their family to help them complete the worksheet ‘How do people get money’? Use Resource 5: how do people get money? (text version) or PDF (87KB)This link will download a file.

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Text versions of resources

The following are accessible text versions of resources for Years 3–4, Topic 5 – Savings and budgets:

We do not have accessible text versions for all resources. If a resource does not have a text version and you need an accessible version, email us at schoolseducationprogram@ato.gov.au.

For a complete list of this topic’s resources, see Resources.

Resource 3: meet Burnie

This resource is for Years 3–4, Topic 5 – Savings and budgets, activity titled Spending, saving and sharing – decision making.

Along with this accessible version, which you can either print or use online, we also have the same resource available as a PDF – Resource 3: meet Burnie (PDF, 101KB)This link will download a file.

Meet Burnie

Meet Burnie:

  • Family and friends are important to Burnie.
  • Giving to charity is important to Burnie.
  • Burnie’s grandmother’s birthday is coming up.
  • Burnie really wants to buy a game that costs $85.
  • Burnie did jobs over the holidays and earned $20.

Burnie’s dilemma

Burnie was at the local fete with his friends. He told them about the money he had earned over the holidays. His friends begged him to buy an ice-cream for them. Burnie was torn – he had so many options.

Burnie’s options:

  1. Put his $20 in a jar to save for the game.
  2. Buy his friends an ice-cream each.
  3. Give some of his money towards animal welfare.
  4. Buy his grandmother a birthday present.
  5. Buy himself a $20 game.
  6. Do more jobs at home.

Identify the pros (advantages) and cons (disadvantages) of each option:

  • Put his $20 in a jar to save for the game.
  • Buy his friends ice-cream.
  • Give some of his money towards cancer research.
  • Buy his grandmother a birthday present.
  • Buy himself a $20 game.
  • Do more jobs at home.

What do you think Burnie should do?

  • spend
  • save
  • share?

Write a sentence about why you think he should do this: for what, how much and why?

What if Burnie decided to spend a part, save a part and share a part? How much money should he spend, save and share?

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Resource 5: how do people get money?

This resource is for Years 3–4, Topic 5 – Savings and budgets, activity titled Homework task – how do people get money?.

Along with this accessible version, which you can either print or use online, we also have the same resource available as a PDF – Resource 5: how do people get money? PDF (87KB)This link will download a file.

Getting money

How do people get money:

  • 8 year-old
  • 15 year-old
  • 30 year-old
  • 50 year-old
  • 80 year-old?

Income tax

Who pays income tax:

  • 8 year-old
  • 15 year-old
  • 30 year-old
  • 50 year-old
  • 80 year-old?

Saving

Who saves:

  • 8 year-old
  • 15 year-old
  • 30 year-old
  • 50 year-old
  • 80 year-old?

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QC61267