Get students thinking critically about money with our festive Let’s Go Christmas Shopping Look & Write PowerPoint. This engaging, real-world maths activity helps students apply their knowledge of Australian coins and notes by solving financial word problems based on Christmas-themed scenarios.

Each slide presents a shopping scenario such as “I have $5.00 – what can I buy?”. Students use the information and price tags to choose what they can afford, either selecting a single item, combining two items, or responding to open-ended prompts with multiple correct answers. The activity gradually increases in complexity, catering to a range of abilities and encouraging flexible thinking about value, budgeting and mental addition.

Let’s Go Christmas Shopping Look & Write PowerPoint is ideal for teaching financial maths in a fun, seasonal context. It encourages problem-solving, strategy and reasoning while connecting directly to real-life money situations – just in time for the holidays!

Key Learning Outcomes:

• ✅ Recognise and use Australian coins and notes
• ✅ Add dollar amounts to solve money problems
• ✅ Apply budgeting and decision-making skills in financial scenarios

What’s Included:

• Interactive PowerPoint with a variety of Christmas-themed money questions
• Each scenario follows the LOOK - WRITE - CHECK format
• Scaffolding from one-item choices to open-ended shopping challenges

Materials Needed:

• Interactive whiteboard or device capable of running PowerPoint
• Mini whiteboards or student books for written responses

How to Use:

1. Open the PowerPoint and display the shopping scenario on your whiteboard or screen.
2. Have students read the amount of money and the item prices carefully.
3. Students write down what they would choose to buy on their whiteboard or in their workbook.
4. Click to the next slide to reveal suggested answers and discuss the different possible combinations.
5. Encourage students to explain their thinking and justify their choices.

Ideas for Classroom Use:

• 💡 Use during your Christmas maths unit as a practical financial literacy activity
• 💡 Add to maths rotations for independent money problem-solving
• 💡 Pair students for collaborative shopping decisions and strategy sharing
• 💡 Encourage students to record different possible item combinations for open-ended slides
• 💡 Turn it into a class challenge – who can find the most combinations within a budget?

Top Teacher Tips:

• 💛 Reinforce vocabulary like “total,” “change,” “budget,” and “combination” throughout
• 💛 Use real coins or plastic money to model transactions alongside the slides
• 💛 Invite students to create their own Christmas shopping slides as a follow-up project

Let’s Go Christmas Shopping Look & Write PowerPoint is a fun and festive way to build financial literacy and problem-solving skills – helping students think creatively and practically about how to spend their money!