The Arcade

The flashiest booth is not the one that wins the week.

The Arcade puts your fourth graders in charge of a game arcade with a real budget, eight booth spaces, and a week of decisions. They choose which games to run and watch the ticket numbers come in. The teams who check the data before they vote beat the teams who chase whatever looks coolest. It is grade-4 math with something on the line.

See what your students get, and why it lands.

No mockups. Every page below is real, pulled straight from the files you download. Tap any one to see it full size.

A worksheet cannot do what a real decision does.

Your fourth graders are not working through someone else's word problems. They are running an arcade, deciding which booths to open with a limited budget and watching the prize tickets add up. The flashy booth always tempts them, but the numbers tell a different story. Every team has to choose: go with what looks cool, or go with what the data says. That is where budgets and averages stop being a worksheet and become a decision they actually argue about.

Tap to read the Day 3 decision

They are graded on their thinking, not on the tickets.

Here is what surprises teachers. The team with the most tickets is not graded higher than the team with the fewest. There is no winning score. Students are graded on the quality of their reasoning, written in their own reflection. A team that made a smart call that did not pay off scores higher than a team that got lucky and cannot explain why. That is how a fourth grader learns that the thinking matters more than the result.

Tap to read the grading note

Let the workbook handle the numbers.

No fourth grader should miss the lesson because the budget math got away from them. The Arcade comes with a workbook that tracks the budget, the booths, and the tickets for the team. They enter their choices, and the totals and what is left all calculate on their own. Their attention stays on the real question, which booths to run, instead of on the arithmetic.

Tap to see the budget tracker

Five days, already scripted. You just run the room.

You do not need to say the word bias once to run this. The guide scripts every day, tells you what students will likely say, and gives you exactly how to respond, like asking whether they picked a booth for the numbers or because it looked cool. The budget, the emergency, and the Day 5 reveal are all written for you. You bring the facilitation. The mission brings everything else.

Tap to read the teacher guide

The lesson plan is already written.

Every simulation comes with a fully editable, admin-ready lesson plan. Standards alignment, daily pacing, learning objectives, differentiation, and an assessment plan are already done, so you can hand it to an administrator or adapt it to your district template in minutes.

Tap to preview the lesson plan

Everything you need to run it.