Day 5: Personal Budget and Xello Scholarship Profile

Daily Learning Contract

• Topic: Personal Budget
• Objective: Students will revise a personal budget so expenses do not exceed income, distinguish business revenue from personal income, and complete the required Xello Scholarship profile.
• TEKS: d(3)(I), d(5)(D)
• Demonstration of Learning: Personal Budget and Xello Scholarship Plan plus Xello Completion Standards report.

Before class

• Post the Dallas County Living-Cost Planning Guide and Personal Budget and Xello Scholarship Plan. Default quantities: one Budget Plan pp. 1-2 per student, one Living-Cost Guide per pair or a projected copy, one calculator per student or pair, and one district-connected device per student for Xello. Print p. 3 only for the no-device Xello direction or catch-up route.
• Open the official Xello Scholarships Guide and 2:02 student video.
• Check the Xello Completion Standards report before class.
• Keep Xello personal profile answers private. Do not require screenshots.
• Ask students to open Entry 3 of the CCE Six-Weeks Evidence Log from their CCE binder or teacher-designated digital folder. The log stays with the student and is not collected.

50-minute flow

1. Read the source labels — 5 minutes

Display the four labels: Dallas County, one adult/no children, updated February 15, 2026, living-cost estimate. Ask what would make the number change.

Students use the fixed $3,450 monthly after-tax scenario. Do not convert an H&L or Xello median into starting pay or take-home pay.

2. Build and revise the budget — 20 minutes

Students copy the rounded reference amounts, add an optional savings goal, and total the first budget. They make one lifestyle choice and build a revised budget that does not exceed $3,450.

They then:

• calculate the percentage used by their two largest categories;
• explain what could change for a different household; and
• explain why business revenue is not the same as personal income.

The last point is the entrepreneurship connection: owners must pay business expenses before treating money as personal income.

3. Complete Xello Scholarship profile — 20 minutes

The authenticated Grade 8 completion standard is Scholarship profile: 20 minutes; complete the matching profile.

Student route:

1. sign in through the district launch page;
2. open College Planning, then Scholarships or Scholarship matches;
3. open the profile or profile booster;
4. answer honestly, including “I don’t know” when that is accurate; and
5. stop when the profile is complete.

Students do not have to apply for or save a scholarship today. The teacher verifies completion in the report, not by collecting private answers.

4. Close and submit — 5 minutes

For the first 2 minutes, students submit the budget as directed. Open the private recovery portfolio only when the teacher has assigned it to replace missing major evidence; it is not a third automatic Major.

For the final 3 minutes, students use short phrases from the revised Budget and Scholarship Plan to complete Evidence Log Entry 3: artifact or task, transferable skill, visible action, revision or recovery move, and next step. They keep the log in their CCE binder or teacher-designated digital folder. They do not upload the log or resubmit the budget.

If the log is missing, students record the five short phrases in their CCE notebook or teacher-designated digital folder and transfer them later. They do not reconstruct earlier work.

Monitoring and key

Budget math must satisfy:

money left = $3,450 - total expenses

The revised total must be $3,450 or less. There is no single correct set of category choices. Strong reasoning keeps the place, household, date, and measure attached and recognizes that family needs change the estimate.

In Xello, honest “I don’t know” answers are better than invented profile information. Scholarship matches are possibilities, not awards or guaranteed income.

Use two budget laps. First check totals and the four source labels; then check the revised total and revenue explanation. If a quarter of the class exceeds $3,450 because the same category was counted twice, pause for one whole-class total check. In Xello, verify access by minute 3 and move unresolved logins to the supervised catch-up list without collecting profile answers. Trim the optional video and whole-group share before trimming the revised budget, revenue explanation, or protected 20-minute Xello block.

At minute 47, check that Entry 3 uses phrases already visible in the revised plan. Do not collect the Evidence Log or score it as another artifact.

Support and absence route

Use the fixed budget scenario, calculator, read-aloud, chunked table, or teacher-selected starting amounts. If Xello is unavailable, students finish the budget and private reflection, then join the supervised catch-up list. Paper does not count as Xello completion. The official guide is the text alternative to the video. A missing Evidence Log uses the five-phrase notebook or digital-folder fallback without a penalty or second submission.