The Wedding Budget SpreadSheet!

This is a chart I created based on the estimated and actual costs of a sample wedding budget in excel. It was an interesting example, used to show the different ways to utilize excel spreadsheets and charts. To view more, look at my "Wedding Planner Spreadsheat."

Excel is a great program to teach students at an early age but, how young is TOO young? It has been my experience to expose students to grids in the 4th grade and then to introduce the Excel program soon after that. However, the concept of compare and contrast, and charts and graphs should be known by the students at a much earlier age.

Post Secondary Students: You will use EVERY part of Microsoft throughout your collegiate career. My math class has just completed a section covering Excel and all of the different ways to utilize spreadsheets and charts in the classroom. Using the project-based learning method, my professor had us inquire as to some statistics of our choice and then create several graphs/charts in order to illustrate our findings. The charts were very useful to my classmates and to my professor, they were able to view the charts and question them as my group was presenting our findings. 

As a future teacher, I might use the Excel program to have the students create spreadsheets, and charts/graphs in order place a visual on their progress in the classroom. By having them do this I am able to see the progress in my instruction and their progress in the assignments. A guiding question for them to use would be:

• What was the difference between your math homework grades in September compared to your math homework grades in October?

I might use the program to have the students create a circle graph, through interactive writing, comparing a ratio of students. A guiding question for this task would be:

• How many students are there in this class? How many boys? How many girls?

Another example of an assignment would be, comparing TAKS testing scores by grade level and by specific test. This will help them to not be as stressed about the state exam and to make it a more positive experience. A guiding question would be:

• What was your class score on the 3rd grade Reading TAKS test compared to your class score on the 4th grade Reading TAKS test?