The Arena

The boring, careful choice is the one that wins.

The Arena hands your sixth graders a tournament to run, with a venue to pick, tickets to price, concessions to stock, and sponsors to weigh. Over ten days the flashy gamble keeps tempting them, and the math keeps rewarding the patient call. It is real budgeting where the careful choice quietly wins.

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 was never going to teach this.

Your sixth graders are not working through someone else's word problems. They are running a tournament, deciding the venue, the ticket price, the concessions, and which sponsors to take. On the sponsorship day a flashy gamble sits next to a guaranteed deal, and the math, not the excitement, says which one to take. The teams who run the numbers before they commit come out ahead. That is budgeting and expected value, with real money on the line.

Tap to read the sponsorship offers

They are graded on their reasoning, not on the profit.

Here is what surprises teachers. The team that earned the most is not graded higher than the one that earned the least. There is no winning number. Students are assessed on the quality of their reasoning, traced through their own daily journal. A smart call that did not pay off scores higher than a lucky one with no thinking behind it. That is how a sixth grader learns that the reasoning matters more than the result.

Tap to read the grading note

Let the workbook handle the math.

No sixth grader should lose the lesson because the budget math got away from them. The Arena comes with a workbook that tracks revenue, costs, and profit as the team makes each call. They enter their choices, and the totals calculate on their own. Their attention stays on the real decision, which option is actually worth it, instead of on the arithmetic.

Tap to see the budget tracker

Every day is already scripted. You just run the room.

You do not need a finance background to teach this. The guide scripts every day, names what students will likely say, and gives you exactly how to respond. The venue, the pricing, the sponsors, and the final standings are all written for you. You bring the facilitation. The simulation 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.