I've managed to work class time into the weekly trip to the grocer. Danny keeps a composition book in which he faithfully records the price of staple items, noting any sales, or rebates. This has turned into a rather interesting project. At the end of the semester, we'll graph the changes.
The project has had some unexpected, yet wonderful benefits. We tend to shop at the same store, at the same time, on the same day each week. Oh, sometimes I'll pop into another store if I need something, but generally I keep to one place. The population that shops at this particular store are somewhat elderly, and Danny can often be pressed into service bending to reach things, or read labels, etc. After a while, shopping at the same place, we've gotten to know people-and they all know that Danny has been recording prices week-to-week in his little book.
"Oh my! $1.98 for a dozen large eggs? That's an outrage. Danny? How much were eggs last week, can you look it up honey?"
And so he does. And the week before, and the week they were on sale, and the week before that.
"Oh, and how has the price of a quart of milk been?"
And this goes on, and on, as we make our way through the store. Sure, it adds a bit of time to the trip, but I've allowed for that now. He seems to enjoy being helpful, and I hope he's learning to act respectfully (and be helpful) to his elders.
At the very least, he's becoming aware of what things cost (you can buy ten pounds of potatoes for less than a quart of cream).
Danny and I think alike. I've been wanting to record gas prices (one line on the graph) and compare that to the cost of a barrel of oil (another line on the graph) and see if retail prices follow industry prices or whether a disparity has grown over the past ~5 years. Perhaps such could be a new lesson in graphs for Mr Daniel: retail price vs cost of materials (and then you get into explaining business, gross margin, etc).
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