Resource
Ways to Pay – Cash, Card and Digital Choices
Compare cash, card and digital payments without promoting a product or assuming children make purchases alone. Free one-page A4 activity with educator guidance and checked answers.
Print, solve and discuss
Preview the complete activity page
Download one-page A4 worksheetCheck the preview, printing notes and licence before use.
A practical Australian money skills activity
Compare cash, card and digital payments without promoting a product or assuming children make purchases alone. The printable gives children a specific task, visible response space and enough information to begin without a long educator explanation.
What children do
Match each action to the best stage: BEFORE paying, WHILE paying or AFTER paying.
Prepare and facilitate
Materials: Printed worksheet, pencil and optional colouring tools. Allow about two minutes to print and place the page. The activity usually takes 25 minutes.
Discuss the process, not children’s access to accounts. Use play money and fictional screens only.
Keep examples fictional. Do not ask children to share household income, access to money, political preferences, addresses or family voting choices.
Answer guide
- Before: check price and permission
- While: keep cash or device controlled and follow the payment prompt
- After: check amount, change or receipt and put payment method away
Adapt participation
Simpler way to join: Read the task aloud, complete one example together and allow pointing, moving tokens or dictating instead of writing.
More challenge: Write one question a customer could ask when a price or payment amount looks wrong.
Learning opportunities
Look for financial vocabulary, calculation, choice-making and explaining a strategy. Ask a child to show a match, calculation, sequence or reason; completion alone is not evidence of understanding.
Useful educator prompts
- What information on the page helps you begin?
- How could you check that match, total or sequence?
- Which part is a fact, and which part is a choice or opinion?
Fact-check sources
Printing notes
Print at actual size on A4 paper. The worksheet is ink-friendly and uses simplified diagrams rather than reproductions of banknotes, coins, official ballot papers or government artwork.
