Functional Life Skills Math Curriculum for Special Education
Feb 24, 2025
News flash, news flash!
Math doesn't have to be the dreaded subject for students in special education!
Functional math can become the favorite subject of the day for students if special education teachers had age-appropriate and skill-relevant resources at their fingertips to teach essential skills that will prepare high school and transition-age students for everyday life.
If educators had the right materials to teach their math lessons, it could be a positive, meaningful learning experience to prepare students for real life. And yes, I know what you are thinking: there aren't any age-appropriate resources for high school and transition-age students that address the everyday math skills they need to be successful in daily life and employment settings.
Well, GOOD NEWS!
The Functional Math Curriculum is the resource to teach the practical math problems that mirror everyday life experiences.
But, before I review how the Functional Math Curriculum is the solution so many special education teachers have been searching for for years, let's review some basics!
What is Functional Math Skills?
Functional math is the practical application of math skills we use daily and need to function in the real world. These foundational skills are typically taught to students with special needs in place of traditional middle school and high school math concepts.
Students learning functional math will still be using problem-solving skills, critical thinking, and analytical thinking skills, as functional math (or transition math or life skill math, as some call it) addresses the mathematical concepts found within essential life skills.
You can read more about basic math skills and check out 8 FREE functional math resources in my functional math resources for special education blog post.
Examples of Real World Functional Math Concepts Include:
While so many believe that Dollar Over and counting mixed coins and bills is the foundation of functional math, it stretches F-A-R beyond that!
Real world functional math includes:
- Paying with the biggest dollar bills available (another cash payment method to use in place of or in addition to dollar up)
- Using a debit card to make in-store and online purchases and access cash from an ATM
- Using digital payment apps (like Zelle and Venmo) to send and receive money
- Determining when it is safe to share personal financial information (i.e. when setting up direct deposit at a new job) and when it isn't safe (i.e. when a friend asks to use your debit card to buy something on their phone)
- Creating a household budget based on past bills
- Saving consistently with each paycheck and for future purchases
- Calculating the total of a bill, including sales, discount, sales tax, and tip
- Determining the best option for getting a purchase when viewing the shopping cart options, including Pick-Up, Delivery, and Shipping, based on immediacy of need and overall cost
- Identifying people who can assist in making smart daily and one-time financial decisions
- Reading and managing time to prioritize tasks and invoke a sense of urgency
- Among many, many others!
Functional math skills stretch beyond daily life activities to include vocational skills, as well. For example:
- Number sense when making or ordering supplies for a small business or stocking the shelves in a store
- Converting common forms of measurement that mean the same thing (i.e. 30 day review = a review in 1 month)
- Calculating income, including how income tax and missed shifts impact pay, as well as estimating future gross pay based on previous paycheck values
- Among others!
What (Unfortunately) Currently Exists for Life Skill Math Instruction:
So much of what currently exists for functional life skills math resources misses the mark...
The materials focus on drilling math facts, naming place value, and drawing a bar graph to match a word problem. (I mean, what 17 year old needs to draw a bar graph in their day-to-day life?)
The design is geared toward elementary-age students and skills max out at middle school-level Dollar Over/Dollar Up payment strategy. (Dollar over/dollar up isn't a bad skill to teach, it's just basic and quite limiting)
The resource addresses the needs of students with learning disabilities who are still following the high school track of courses, including geometry and algebra level classes. (If your students are learning geometry and algebra-level skills, they aren't on a functional track)
The label of 'curriculum' is just math books, like spiral student workbooks, that flat-out lack engagement and relevancy of today's students (Like, there can't possibly be digital payment app word problems in there).
Math programs that require special education teachers to read from a script (yes, like a robot) and stay on a strict timeline.
I'm disheartened every time I hear that special education teachers are only able to find functional math resources with juvenile graphics. Or, first grade level math word problems about buying basket of fruit with smiling cartoon apples.
Thankfully, there is now a better option out there. Keep reading ↓ ↓ ↓
What You Need (and Deserve) in a Functional Math Curriculum for Special Education Students:
You DESERVE the following:
- A comprehensive educational program, a.k.a curriculum, that addresses the needs of a wide range of grade levels, specifically high school through transition
- Daily lesson plans written clearly and to the point so you know what to tackle that day in just a few seconds, because you are busy!
- Resources that will gain and maintain your students' attention
- Activities for daily lesson ideas that are based on real-life examples and realistic activities of math that secondary students would most likely encounter
- Weekly or daily routine ideas, like having a conversation warm-up, exit slips, or end of class cool down related to specific functional math skills in the real world
- Slide decks, videos, notes, and guided practice that provide explicit instruction and visual supports for
- Review activities, like games and skill practice, that provide as close to hands-on experience as possible within a self-contained classroom AND that you can do with a whole class, in small groups, with partners, or independently because you value flexibility
- Useful teaching resources that go beyond the paper/pencil worksheet, like Boom Cards!
- Assessments and data collection methods that clearly show what students have learned over the course of a unit
- And a convenient, easy-to-track answer key for each resource...because, obviously, you don't have time to read size 10 font in the back of a non-spiral textbook!
The Functional Math Curriculum
The Functional Math Curriculum is the one and only full year special education math curriculum for teens and young adults that addresses real-world math skills, so you can finally move beyond the Dollar Over method and start addressing a wider range of daily life math skills that help your students transition to independent living and employment settings.
Any resource that is labeled as a curriculum should span an entire year, meaning materials to cover 170 days of the school year. The Functional Math Curriculum is a full year solution!
Consistent, mature design, including age-appropriate graphics, colors, font, and format for teens and young adults across all materials
Older students, specifically transition-age and high school students, need instruction on practical skills they will use in real-life situations, specifically volunteer positions, entry-level employment, and independent living.
AND resources with text that's accessible to low-level readers!
The Functional Math Curriculum comes in a PDF format and with technology perks, including Google Slide slide decks with instructional videos, videos, Boom Cards, and Google Form assessments.
With the wide range of environments that an average teen and young adult will find themselves in each day, there is a wide range of skills based on real-world situations within the curriculum. Meaning it's not limited to Dollar Over and shopping sales ads.
The curriculum covers 20+ functional math skills!
- Calculating Income
- Banking, Counting Money, & Paying
- Creating a Budget
- Handling Money Safely
- Needs & Wants
- In-Store & Online Shopping
- Sale and Discount Prices
- Comparing Prices
- Receipts and Returns
- Restaurant Ordering (dine-in and online menu math) & Tipping
- Saving and Interest
- Advocacy w/ Financial Decisions
- Reading a Clock
- Prioritizing Time
- Interpreting & Converting Time
- Estimating and Calculating Elapsed Time
- Backward and Forward Time Planning
- Calendar: Days & Dates
- Numbers and Counting (Ascending/Descending Order & More Than/Less Than)
- Quantity, Estimating, & Time
- Sorting & Matching
The Functional Math Curriculum is a great resource because it's comprehensive, a complete solution for teachers new to teaching this skill and those looking to update the math skills they focus on.
Each of the 21 lesson units listed above comes with the following:
- Day-by-day lesson plans so lesson planning takes seconds instead of hours
- Pre-check to quickly assess a baseline of learning across the class
- Done-for-you Google Slide deck + videos to introduce concepts and skills (videos not included in the Financial Self-Advocacy unit)
- Slide deck listening guide for at-a-glance notes that will actually be referenced by students
- Engaging warm-up questions to get students talking about the lesson (in a fun, relevant way)
- Relatable reading passages that give context and meaning to skill-specific vocabulary
- Guided practice with faded support to begin applying new skills with examples that pull from daily life
- Independent activity to reinforce the unit’s skills with scenarios drawn from real-life teen and young adult experiences
- Exit slips to check for understanding within seconds
- Boom Card Task Cards for whole class or individual review of concepts with instant feedback (Boom Cards not included in the Financial Self-Advocacy unit)
- Review activity (a.k.a game) to easily engage students in the content
- Assessment (Available as both PDF + Google Form) to easily determine overall class learning of each learning objective in the format of your choice (paper or digital)
- Data collection to objectively assess learning for each student
- Daily spiraling functional math worksheets for consistent review of various math skills in a quick run-through format (tip: perfect for morning work or end of class wrap-up)
- Answer keys to simply make life easier
Who is the Functional Math Curriculum For:
...The special education teacher who wants resources (i.e. warm ups, guided practice, independent work, games, and skill reviews) that will result in high student engagement.
...Educators who teach in special education classrooms with a wide range of ages and/or skill levels with resources that use different methods to meet students' needs, including reading, conversation, and technology.
...Teachers who want an easy-to-use resource that allows them to pick and choose their own pace and lesson sequence.
...Transition-age teachers who want plenty of practice of functional math skills their students would use in their daily lives.
...Teachers who flip between teaching a variety of subjects within a resource room because one the best parts of this resource is that everything you need is ready to use in seconds!
...The Life Skills teacher who wants a curriculum that will address the IEP goals of their students and includes a system for data collection to assess student learning.
...High school math teachers looking for curriculum as a pre-cursor to consumer math (if this is you, check out the Consumer Math Curriculum)
...Educators who are looking for a Common Core Standards-based curriculum that addresses high school math for special needs students.
...A homeschool mom looking for a homeschool math program with a strong emphasis on 'everyday math skills' that meets the needs of your high schooler (or older) child with special needs.
...Public school special education teacher who is tired of creating every single part of a lesson (or worse, completely supplementing your 'required' boxed curriculum with appropriate materials)
...Canadian & Australian special education teachers! Canadian and Australian Dollar/Coin graphics will be included in select worksheets (Coming Soon!)
If you are ready to add this great resource to your teacher toolbox, click on over to the Functional Math Curriculum to get it today!
