Percent Word Problems – Tipping & Gratuities Math

Practise percentages by calculating tips and discussing the tipping situations described in the handout.

Here’s a ready-to-print real-life percent math lesson for middle school students (in grades 6-9) or special education or life skills classes in a high school setting.

Use the handout’s Canada and United States examples as discussion prompts; add context from your own community.

• Why do people tip or give certain people a gratuity?

• What places do we tip? What places do we not?

• Has tipping been increasing recently ("tip-flation")?

Show students how the math skills and concepts that they have been learning in class (percentages, decimals, division, fractions) can be useful in their everyday lives!

How to Use:

1. The first student page, PDF page 2, is a handout that you complete with your students (with fill-in-the-blanks) to teach them the ins and outs of tipping: where and when you do it, etc.

2. The next student page teaches students two simple methods of calculating tips (using well-known percentage benchmarks OR multiplying the price by a percentage written in decimal form). Encourage your students to determine a third method they could use.

3. After that, there are 7 practice word problems of realistic tipping situations that your students can complete. From tipping for a meal to paying at a salon, or even calculating tax AND tip together, your students will get a lot of real-life practice completing these problems in small groups or on their own.

4. To finish, you can have a class discussion about tipping in general and what your students think about our system.

What's Included: 6 Page PDF

- Teacher Instructions

- Handout with Fill-in-the-Blanks about Tipping

- 3-Page Worksheet and Written Reflection

- Complete answer key included