Cheaper or More Expensive Sort Task Box

About this resource

EVERYTHING INSIDE — 22 pages, FIELDS_TBD type-in fields

• 33 price-comparison cards across 3 levels (12 rounds: 6 rounds of 2 cards, 3 rounds of 3 cards, 3 rounds of 4 cards). Every card is two price tags, left and right; the child reads both and sorts the card into a MORE EXPENSIVE bin (the left tag costs more) or a CHEAPER bin (the left tag costs less)
• Every card twice: accent-colored price tags for a laminated classroom box, and outline-only tags for the photocopier — no picture library either way, just printed numbers on a drawn tag
• A two-bin sort mat (color and ink-saver), MORE EXPENSIVE and CHEAPER, each with a plain-language line ("The LEFT price tag costs more." / "The LEFT price tag costs less."), one worked sample pair and six card-sized slots
• An answer key listing every card by level: the left tag, the right tag, and its bin
• A task box data sheet (16 rows: date, level, rounds given, cards correct, cards given, percent, help given, initials)
• A percent graph, 14 sessions across, with a level box under each session
• A filled example — an invented student, 8 sessions, every percent re-counted from its own row
• A family practice page with six of the same cards and the two bins, cut apart as one 6-across strip
• A phrase bank: spoken lines for running the box and written starters for the note afterward, 25 lines in 6 groups
• Start Here, a contents page with page thumbnails, and a "what's next" back page

The everyday-shopping skill in one card: two price tags, side by side — which one costs more? The answer is never printed on the card; only the mat's bin headers name the two outcomes, so the child has to read both tags every time, left one first.

Three Levels, And The Difficulty Is How Close The Two Prices Are

• Level 1 — 6 rounds, 2 cards each. The two prices are always at least three dollars apart: a glance at the two tags settles it, no real adding needed.
• Level 2 — 3 rounds, 3 cards each. The two prices land 50 cents to a dollar and a half apart — close enough that a glance is not reliable, but reading both tags settles each card.
• Level 3 — 3 rounds, 4 cards each, cut as one strip. Every pair is within fifteen cents of each other, and most cards (8 of 12) put one price under a dollar in cents and the other a dollar or more — "95¢" against "1.05" — so the card takes reading the tag correctly, not just comparing how many digits it has.

Nothing on a card says its level or its bin except a dot code in the corner (one, two or three dots), so a mixed-up box sorts itself back together.

PRICES WITHOUT A CURRENCY SYMBOL, ON PURPOSE — a dollar sign is never used anywhere in this file. Under a dollar, a price is written in cents (35¢); a dollar or more, it is written the way a register shows it, with the word "dollars" on the tag (2.35 dollars). Level 3 is built specifically so a cents price and a dollar price sit close together, because that is the one place the two ways of writing a price can be misread as "the one with more digits must cost more."

What This Is, And What It Is Not

It is a fillable PDF: type into the data sheet, the graph header, the family page and the example-style notes, or print and use a pen. The card pages and sort mat print on cardstock or plain paper and cut along dashed lines. It works offline with no account or subscription. It is NOT an editable online slideshow or word-processor document, and it is not a test of anything.

No price on a card is a real store's price. It carries no prompt hierarchy, fading schedule or mastery rule, and it does not decide what a percent means for a student or when to move up a level. The goal line and the criterion field are blanks for your district's own wording and your team's own number. It measures one thing: cards placed in the correct bin.

Who This Is For

Special education teachers and paraprofessionals running independent work stations or task box rotations with students working on money, price-reading and comparison skills, case managers who need that practice to show up as data, and the families who get the practice page sent home.

More In The Collection

This is one set in the Task Box Collection; more sort, counting and life-skills boxes are being added to the collection regularly, all on the same cards-plus-data shape.