NYC Vacation

Our driving question is "If you had $5000 and are going on vacation to New York City for 4 days, how would you budget the expenses? You must take into account the cost of a plane ticket, hotel, and food costs, as well as shopping for your own personal items. You must spend as close to the $5000 as possible, but you cannot go over this amount.".


Through this project, students are applying mathematical and social study standards that they have learned throughout the year. Students are applying these standards to a real life situation that prepares them for budgeting in their own life. This driving question encourages students to think about budgeting in their own life, and to really think about how they are spending money. Through this activity, students will be able to come to various solutions. Students will make their own decisions (based on their group) about their vacation, so all of the group’s budgets will be different in the end.


Our grabber is to pull out a suitcase full of items (brochures about plane tickets, hotel information, famous and popular restaurants in NYC, other NYC attractions, and physical souvenirs from NYC).

“Has anyone ever been to New York City? Well, now we are all going to go! We are going to take a class vacation to New York City, but you get to decide what you want to do and how you will spend a given amount of money.”

Show them a travel guide video about things to do in NYC and different attractions of the city. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZO7yE_tbAI

Once the video is done and the groups are set up, pass out $5,000 in paper money to each group.


Our driving question addresses the following standards:

PS.1: Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. 

PS.2: Reason abstractly and quantitatively.

PS.3: Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.

PS.4: Model with mathematics.

PS.5: Use appropriate tools strategically.

PS.6: Attend to precision.

4. NS. 9: Use place value understanding to round multi-digit whole numbers to any given place value. 

4. C. 1: Add and subtract multi-digit whole numbers fluently using a standard algorithmic approach.

4. AT. 1: Solve real-world problems involving addition and subtraction of multi-digit whole numbers.

4. AT. 2: Recognize and apply the relationships between addition and multiplication, between subtraction and division, and the inverse relationship between multiplication and division to solve real-world and other mathematical problems. 

4. AT. 4: Solve real-world problems with whole numbers involving multiplicative comparison (e.g., by using drawings and equations with a symbol for the unknown number to represent the problem), distinguishing multiplicative comparison from additive comparison. 

4.3.2: Estimate distances between two places on a map when referring to relative locations. 

4.4.10: Explain how people save, develop a savings plan, and create a budget in order to make a future purchase.


Our culminating activity is to have students work together in groups of 4 to decide how they will budget their money. Students will be given time each class period, for two weeks, to work on their project, before they present it to the class. Students can present their budget to the class through either PowerPoint or Prezi. There will be resources provided to the class, such as books about New York City and things to do there as well as websites to visit to look up travel arrangements such as Travelocity, Expedia, the Indianapolis Airport website. This will lead to debates among groups, as students will have to make decisions about the best way to spend their money, for each area within their budget. For example, students will have different opinions about which hotel is best to stay at or what food and personal items are more important to purchase. At the end of the two week period, students will present their budget through presentations to the other groups in the class. Students must show how they split up their money between each area of their spending. At the end of each presentation, other peers will get to critique and question the group’s decisions, which will force the group that is presenting to either defend or change the solutions they came to.



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