Enough Money or Not Enough? Task Box

About this resource

EVERYTHING INSIDE — 22 pages, 148 type-in fields (verified: pypdf field count on the shipped PDF)

• 33 price-and-money cards across 3 levels (12 rounds: 6 rounds of 2 cards, 3 rounds of 3 cards, 3 rounds of 4 cards). Every card is a price tag over a small pile of drawn US coins and bills; the child adds the money and sorts the card into an ENOUGH bin (the money is the price or more) or a NOT ENOUGH bin (less)
• Every card twice: copper and silver coins with green bills for a laminated classroom box, and outline-only money for the photocopier — every coin and bill drawn and labeled with its value, no picture library either way
• A two-bin sort mat (color and ink-saver), ENOUGH and NOT ENOUGH, each with a plain-language line ("The money is the price, or more. I can buy it." / "The money is less than the price. Not yet."), one worked sample and six card-sized slots
• An answer key listing every card by level: the price, the money drawn on it, what it adds to, 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 3 x 2 grid
• 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 life-skills question in one card: here is the price, here is the money in your hand — is it enough? Exactly enough counts as enough, the way it does at a register, and the answer is never printed on the card; only the mat's bin headers name the two outcomes, so the child has to add the money every time.

Three Levels, And The Difficulty Is How Close The Money Is To The Price

• Level 1 — 6 rounds, 2 cards each. Prices under a dollar, every pile one kind of coin (three dimes, two quarters, six pennies), and the money at least 25 cents above or below the price: count one coin and the answer is obvious.
• Level 2 — 3 rounds, 3 cards each. Prices up to three dollars, mixed coins and up to two one-dollar bills, the money 15 to 50 cents from the price either way — close enough that the pile has to be added, far enough that a counting slip does not flip the answer.
• Level 3 — 3 rounds, 4 cards each, cut as one strip. Prices from five to ten dollars, five- and ten-dollar bills join the ones and coins, and the money is within a dime of the price: a nickel short, a dime over, or exactly enough. Every card needs the exact total.

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.

DRAWN MONEY, ON PURPOSE — every coin is a labeled circle at its real size relative to the others (the dime really is the smallest), every bill a labeled green rectangle, drawn the same way in both sets. There is no clip-art coin to misread. Prices are written without a currency symbol: cents under a dollar (35¢, the same notation the coins carry) and the way a register shows it above (2.35).

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.

The money is drawn small, not at true size, and 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 and purchasing 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.