As special education teachers we know that our students need to deveop a strong understanding of money concepts so that they can develop functional life skills. But… it can be very challenging to teach students about these abstract concepts. That’s where the snack ticket strategy comes in! Read on to see how to quickly and easily help students understand.
MONEY CONCEPTS STUDENTS NEED IN THE COMMUNITY
To be independent in the community, our students will need to functional math skills surrounding money. For example:
- A basic understanding of the pupose of money
- Understand that you can’t take something without paying for it
- Being able to determine if you have enough money to purchase what you want
- Understand the process of exchanging currency for the item
While these are all important skills, students with severe disabilities often struggle to grasp these concepts. These concepts don’t hold a lot of meaning for them. That’s where the snack ticket system comes in.
Use the snack ticket system in conjunction with the rest of your instruction on money concepts.
THE SNACK TICKET SYSTEM
In order to make these math concepts meaningful, you need to start with something that is important to your students. With the snack ticket system, you will be able to teach students the purpose of their “currrency” or tickets, the process of exchanging them for something they want, and practice determining if they have enough to buy what they want.
Materials needed:
- Highly preferred snack items
INTEGRATE COMMUNICATION & LIFE SKILLS
Not only will the snack ticket system build money concepts, but you will also be able to target a variety of other skills at the same time. For example…
- Communication skills: Practice requesting and communicating what students want to “purchase.”
- Nutritional concepts: If you divide the snack and drink items into food groups, students will have repeated practice with building nutrition related skills.
- Vocational skills: Target vocational skills by having students package the snack items.
- Behavior & social skills: Practice staying calm and safe if you don’t have enough to buy the snack you want.
PUT THE SNACK SYSTEM INTO PRACTICE
Use these steps to implement this beginning money concepts system in your classroom.
First, print and laminate snack tickets. Grab your FREE copy of the snack and drink tickets in my free resource library. We use similar, but different tickets for food and drink items. I want to get students in the habit of looking closely at their “currency.”
Next, decide how may tickets you want each student to have. We give each student 3 snack tickets and 1 drink ticket. I want my students to have multiple opportunities to practice these money concepts each day.
I also don’t want students to eat mass quantities of food during snack to get this extra practice. To solve this problem and to create another vocational task, students practice packaging and sorting snacks into small containers.
I love that this system offers another chance to practice measuring and counting out itmes into the containers.
It’s important that you are using highly preferred snack items while students are learning this system. It’s more work to get a snack now, so we want to make sure that they are motivated.
Now that you have your snacks and tickets, let students know that they will be coming up to the table to “buy” what they want for snack. If possible, have a para or therapist help students through the process of exchanging their ticket for snack the first few times. If you are using a snack they really want, it won’t take long before students understand the process.
lastly, have a plan or visuals ready for when students run out of tickets and want more snack. This is when you reinforce the money concepts that you have to have money or a ticket in order to buy what you want.
