From: Cynthia (for Teacher2Teacher Service)
Date: Mar 10, 2007 at 08:21:56
Subject: Re: Sales tax/interest

Hi Cory,

I really like your original ideas, and I agree with Claire that using a 
spreadsheet could really make it effective, even though you could also have 
the kids calculate the interest with a calculator. A table might look like
this. (I'd switch the cols and rows in a spreadsheet.

Year                              1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10...19 20 21
Amount Deposited 
% Interest Compounded Annually 
Interest Earned This Year
Total Savings To-Date

You could ask them a question like, If your grandparents opened a savings 
account for you when you were born, and deposited $10 per week and interest 
is paid at 6% compounded annually, how much money would you have by the 
time you are 21. 

The neat thing about using a spreadsheet (other than it would calculate 
everything for you) is that you could vary the percent by just changing one 
value. 

 -Cynthia, for the T2T service

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