Lesson 3 — Activity 1: Rounding to the Nearest Dollar



Getting Ready


You are ready to hit the slopes in Jasper, but you must first buy a snowboard and boots.

Here are the prices of the items.


Snowboard: $399.99
Boots: $199.99


How would you solve this problem? How would you round the prices to estimate the amount?

You will need to round both of these prices up to estimate what the cost would be.


Courtesy of Getty

 

Try This:


For example:

$399.99 becomes $400.00
$199.99 becomes $200.00

Then it becomes a matter of adding your estimated prices together:

$400 + $200 = $600

This is much simpler than adding the cents, isn't it?


While shopping at the grocery store, we need to work with money and decimals.

For example, if you have decided to buy the following items for a spaghetti dinner, you need to find out how much they will cost.

1 box of spaghetti: $1.75
3 cans tomato sauce: $1.99 each
1 loaf French bread: $0.99

Courtesy of Pixabay

First, we can estimate what each item would cost.

For example:


$1.75 rounds up to $2.00
$1.99 rounds up to $2.00 (x 3 cans)
$0.99 rounds up to $1.00

We can then add the numbers in our heads, on paper, or use our calculator to find the estimated cost:

2 + 2 +2 + 2 + 1 = $9.00

Now, if we need to know exactly how much to spend, we would add the following amounts on paper (by lining up the decimal places) or using a calculator.

  $1.75
  $1.99
  $1.99
  $1.99
+ $0.99
  $8.71









  Self-check!

Try this!

Try this!

Try this activity to practice rounding dollar amounts in order to purchase a music. Answer these questions on your own first. When you are finished, click on the tabs below to check your answers.


While shopping at a music store, you need to decide what you can buy with your $25.00. Here are your album choices.

  • Mozart $24.99
  • The Beatles $24.75
  • Taylor Swift $24.10


Which album is the cheapest?


Which album is the most expensive?


If you rounded each price to the nearest dollar, which one would be closest to $24.00?


Which album would be closet to $25.00?


Digging Deeper


Click here to play a game where you will round money to the nearest dollar.