Financial Literacy Lesson Plan by Shari Lawrence

2025-01-22 16:13:01 UTC

Post a celebrity budget and see if we can guess who it belongs to

oppnetcurriculum — 2025-01-22 16:13:18 UTC

ask students to shout out the last 3 things they spent their own money on

shari15 — 2025-01-22 16:13:36 UTC

I would ask if you found $100 what would you do with that money

oppnetcurriculum — 2025-01-22 16:13:50 UTC

Show some financial lit related vocab words and have students come up with what questions they have about those vocab words

Price Guessing game

2025-01-22 16:15:21 UTC

Ask them to guess the costs of items like the baby game where folks need to guess the price of items

2025-01-22 16:16:45 UTC

Show a picture of a Barbie dream house or Batman's lair and ask students how much $$ they think things cost, and what that might say about Barbie/Batman budget priorities

2025-01-22 16:16:56 UTC

Have students share their most outlandish budget if they had unlimited money

2025-01-22 16:16:58 UTC

Give all of the students Monopoly money and have them "pay bills" to facilitators throughout the lesson. Give them quality of life points for spending on themselves. Create fixed and random (variable) expenses throughout the lesson. Give them income regularly (maybe someone wins the lottery).

oppnetcurriculum — 2025-01-22 16:16:58 UTC

Build a virtual sandbox or collage of your ideal financial situation (can't think of a more inviting term for this lol)

oppnetcurriculum — 2025-01-22 16:17:05 UTC

open a conversation about formats/places for a budget that feel usable to students (e.g. not the same template for everyone)

loulou23 — 2025-01-22 16:17:20 UTC

Conversation on what is your buying/spending guilty pleasure- the thing you can't help buy when you see it/ and you know you don't necessarily "need" it in that that moment

2025-01-22 16:17:21 UTC

ask students what's the most expensive thing you've ever purchased

2025-01-22 16:17:24 UTC

giving participants a hypothetical budget for the week and letting them list out what they might use it on

oppnetcurriculum — 2025-01-22 16:17:25 UTC

Ask them to demonstrate how they budget a week's worth of meals

2025-01-22 16:17:43 UTC

Allow space for Fellows to create their own budgets live time

shari15 — 2025-01-22 16:17:56 UTC

I would ask students to share about what's a money lesson they've learned from a family member or close friend

You got Money, They Got money, Everyone has money!

2025-01-22 16:18:02 UTC

I would give each student a small stack of play money when they walk in through the door. Then to open up the lesson I would state that they now have a job which can afford them new things and they will be able to use money to pay for things and then refer to this money in other parts of the lesson (see Moving away from sense of urgency for more deets!)

Ask students what is something they have or would purchase that they think would be "worth the price"

carl322 — 2025-01-22 16:18:07 UTC

charlotte812 — 2025-01-22 16:18:09 UTC

Discussion question - "How do you like to treat yourself when it comes to budget?"

oppnetcurriculum — 2025-01-22 16:18:12 UTC

Move the exit ticket to the intro- have students work on the scenario in the intro and see if it changed at the end

oppnetcurriculum — 2025-01-22 16:18:17 UTC

add a community norm for the session to recognize that talking about money brings stuff up for folks and reiterate the intentions behind talking about it in class today

2025-01-22 16:18:26 UTC

Add an open space for each them of add what money means to them. It would be more freeform and feel like a brainstorm

loulou23 — 2025-01-22 16:18:28 UTC

inviting students to think about "how" we learn about money/spending, what money means in society/in popular culture.

2025-01-22 16:18:35 UTC

hold space for a conversation about what is challenging about sticking to a budget

Discussion where I ask students to share about their personal relationships with money, and if they have ever budgeted before etc

2025-01-22 16:18:57 UTC

2025-01-22 16:19:00 UTC

ask students to grab a poster and divide it into 2, they can draw or place stickers or write in part 1: what does your budget look like now? and at the end of the lesson: what does your new budget look like?

loulou23 — 2025-01-22 16:19:03 UTC

inviting students to think about familial history/patterns around relationships to money and spending

2025-01-22 16:19:05 UTC

maybe some sort of activity where students think about and share a "big ticket item" that they really want to save for and then think about (add up) how many lattes (or other smaller, shorter-term, non-necessity item) that it would take to pay for the bigger "save" item...

shari15 — 2025-01-22 16:19:10 UTC

I might give students time to explore several different kinds of budgets and select which one resonants with them or what they notice about the budget

2025-01-22 16:19:23 UTC

Holding time for small groups to talk through budget friendly ways to treat yourself on campus

charlotte812 — 2025-01-22 16:19:35 UTC

Budget spending simulation activity, perhaps in groups

2025-01-22 16:19:39 UTC

Look at the purchases/spending of someone famous who has gone bankrupt (ie MC Hammer) to demonstrate income must be more than spending.

Ask students what types of purchases are important or have value based on the different spaces they engage in-person, virtually, family, culturally, locality, etc

carl322 — 2025-01-22 16:19:42 UTC

Game of Life in Real Life

oppnetcurriculum — 2025-01-22 16:19:43 UTC

Playing the life game where students are given characters and have to role play their budgeting concerns.

2025-01-22 16:19:43 UTC

Everyone gets a stack of fake money and they put money in general bins at the beginning of the lesson. They are all "ballers" and are highlighting whats important to them at the start of the lesson

2025-01-22 16:19:50 UTC

ask students if you won the lottery, how would you spend that money? how does this connect to your values?

2025-01-22 16:20:11 UTC

have students reflect on their values and then map items from their weekly spending to which values those items align with

2025-01-22 16:20:16 UTC

Provide a list of possible financial goals (owning a home, buying a car, having a dog/pet, taking yearly vacations somewhere tropical, etc) and let Fellows rank what they hope to have in their future.

loulou23 — 2025-01-22 16:20:19 UTC

have students think about how they "feel" after spending money, what elements about the cost/item shape how they feel?

Maybe set up a Jeopordy type game where they are earning money related to answering questions on financial budget topics, and then at the end discuss how they would spend the money they just earned from the game

2025-01-22 16:20:28 UTC

2025-01-22 16:20:35 UTC

ask students what do you spend the most money on-- then break it down to which are your needs vs wants

Deal or No Deal

2025-01-22 16:20:46 UTC

I would get the Fellows to play a game of Deal or No Deal, college student version, where the suitcases align with dollar values that correspond to necessities in college and design it so that it feels low stakes but very practical too

Pintrest list of wants

oppnetcurriculum — 2025-01-22 16:20:53 UTC

create a board of wants and think about how high need they are and how much time it would take to achieve. How urgent is this need?

We Got Money, Do we really?

2025-01-22 16:21:03 UTC

Give Fellows a worksheet with various activities and costs associated with each and they have to pick 5-6 items they have to pick and can only use the amount given to them to pay for each item. Some of these are things like a phone bill, chic fila meal, their rent, new pair of shoes, transportation. etc. Then share out how they created their budget and also give them certain parameters they could only choose from. So they need to choose from each category

Thinking about spending from your identified values vs standardized ideals of fin lit

carl322 — 2025-01-22 16:21:17 UTC

Engaging and navigating through finances while holding our wellness

carl322 — 2025-01-22 16:23:01 UTC