An economics Social Studies topic in elementary classrooms is Personal Financial Literacy. It is more important than ever to educate our primary students about personal spending and saving.
The major objectives of financial literacy lessons are:
- spending and saving
- personal economic choices- opportunity cost
- budgets
Spending & Saving
A great place to start is spending choices. Helping students understand if they are buying something they need or something they want is a first step to understand budgets and disposable income. Most kids have an allowance. Many students get birthday money. A lot of children still have a piggy bank.
Some Spending and Saving activity ideas:
- Sort picture cards to differentiate between Spending or Saving
- Define what makes a Smart Spender
- Differentiate between short-term and long-term saving
- Have each student make a long term savings plan
- Employ a token economy in your classroom
If you want to read more about using a token economy in your classroom, click here.
Opportunity Cost
Opportunity cost is a new term to most primary students. They feel the push to spend their money, rarely thinking about a different choice. Most kids don’t even think past their present situation. But, we need to help them see all the possibilities.
Many classrooms have a Student Store that kids use points, tickets, or coins to buy from. This is the perfect opportunity to weave in mini-lessons on consumer choice. If you gave each table a choice of 4 things, they could discuss and debate the benefits and drawbacks of each.
Budgets
Most young kids don’t understand the difference between bills and spending money. They take things like shelter, water and heat for granted. They hear their parents say that they cannot afford something, and they don’t understand why. This is why it is an important objective to cover.
Here is where practicing with a mock budget project can help students:
- participate in a mock budget project
- Sort picture cards into expendable and disposable income
- Make interactive anchor charts of both kinds of income
- define what makes a recurring bill
No matter which activities you choose to do, I recommend you use the project approach. Kids make better connections when they actively engage in learning. If you would like to save some time and use premade resources, click on the covers below to visit my store.
