Teach the building blocks of financial capability
Using the building blocks to integrate financial education throughout K–12 education represents a promising opportunity to reach children and youth at pivotal points in their development and financial lives.
The building blocks provide a framework and effective strategies to teach students at different development stages the skills and knowledge associated with adult financial well-being. You can use this framework to identify financial literacy priorities, develop promising teaching techniques, and refine existing programs and resources.
Finding classroom activities
Use CFPB’s interdisciplinary, age-appropriate activities in your own K-12 classroom to help students develop the building blocks and increase their financial capability.
Nurture the building blocks in the classroom
To help you teach the building blocks across different content areas and educational settings, CFPB has created a range of informative materials and classroom activities to instruct students of all ages. These resources can help promote lifelong learning and financial skills development.
Money Monsters stories
Use the Money Monsters story series to help children in grades K-5 develop financial literacy skills.
Assessments
Measure students’ progress toward youth financial capability.
Building block resources
Access online financial education resources from other agencies and organizations that support our classroom activities.
Glossary
Build students’ financial vocabulary by introducing key terms.
Posters
Download full color posters you can use as a handout.
- Building your money skills poster
- How to read a pay stub poster
- How to read a pay stub poster (Spanish)
- Learn about coins and dollar bills poster
- Safe ways to store your savings poster
- Tips to keep your Social Security number safe poster
- Understanding credit card statement poster
- Understanding credit scores poster
- What is debt? poster
- What is insurance? poster
- What’s your money style? poster
Teaching techniques for building financial capability
Research on the building blocks of financial capability shows that specific instructional strategies and learning activities are appropriate for helping youth develop the knowledge, skills, and habits that can lead to adult financial well-being. CFPB has created informational materials to support educators in putting this research into practice.
Grade-level guides
Use these brief guides to incorporate developmentally appropriate strategies into your classroom to help students learn and practice skills to develop financial capability.
Effective teaching strategies
Although many strategies can be effective for teaching youth financial education, the Bureau has identified and defined some that are well suited for teaching particular building blocks.