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Back to school resources for teachers, parents and financial education practitioners

This fall, wherever you are and however you teach, CFPB has resources to help you build financial skills in children and young adults. The pandemic’s impact both confirms the urgency of financial literacy and prevents many schools from operating as usual. Whether you’re working with a small child or a young adult and in whatever setting, whether you are helping them learn at home, online or in the classroom, you will want to check out these resources from the Bureau.

Teacher activities and resources

We know there are sometimes challenges associated with bringing financial education into a classroom or other settings. That is why we recently expanded our youth financial education content to provide K-12 educators with free resources. Our resources are grounded in research about what works to build youth financial knowledge, skills, and habits.

This most recent update includes additional activities specifically for use by elementary educators complemented by a series of five Money Monster Stories that introduce ideas, habits and activities that students will need as they grow up. While our resources were designed for classroom use, most of them are adaptable to virtual instruction. Resources on the site include:

  • Searchable activities for grades K-12 including 250 free activities to teach the building blocks of financial capability across the curriculum, designed for use within a typical class period. Teachers can search by grade level, activity duration, and other key filters.
  • Money Monster story series that focuses on important money concepts like borrowing, earning, protecting, saving, and spending to help introduce children to ideas, habits, and activities they will need as they grow up and start to manage their own money.
  • Assessments to help teachers gauge their students’ mastery of the building blocks and to help students assess their knowledge, skills, and habits related to financial capability.
  • A video series to help you learn about the CFPB building blocks of youth financial education and how to implement financial education into your classroom.

To learn more about teaching youth financial capability, including the building blocks of financial education that are the foundation for our materials, visit consumerfinance.gov/youth-financial-education/.

Free money skills activities for parents and kids

We’ve also compiled some of our Money as You Grow and Youth Financial Education classroom activities for parents looking for ways to keep your kids engaged and progressing at home. Activities are suitable for ages ranging from three to 18. To use the classroom activities, you may want to read or download the teacher guide yourself, and then print the student guide and activities for your child or allow them to complete the worksheets digitally. Money as You Grow is always available online, for parents to see if their child is reaching age-appropriate money milestones and find more activities and conversation starters that can keep your child on track. And parents in Spanish-speaking families can check out El Dinero Mientras Creces.

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