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Find financial literacy activities

Find activities that can help you teach and nurture the building blocks of financial capability across the curriculum.

These classroom activities can be completed within a single class period. Each activity comes with a teacher guide and supporting student material, so it’s easy to implement whether you’re an experienced personal finance teacher, integrating financial literacy into another subject area, or supplementing your existing financial education curriculum.

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Showing 13 matches out of 251 activities

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Saving for long-term goals
Saving for short-term goals
Elementary school (K-1)
Elementary school (2-3)
Elementary school (4-5)

  • Starting small and saving up

    Updated

    Ideal for: Elementary school (2-3), Elementary school (4-5)

    Students read a story about characters who save for something special and then create their own savings goal.

    Key information

    Topic:
    Save and invest (Saving for short-term goals)
    Activity duration:
    45-60 minutes

    Building block

    • Executive function
    • Financial habits and norms

  • Puzzling out your savings future

    Updated

    Ideal for: Elementary school (4-5)

    Using an origami children’s puzzle, students will choose an item, a time frame, and a dollar amount to determine how long they need to save before they can buy that item.

    Key information

    Topic:
    Save and invest (Saving for long-term goals, Saving for short-term goals)
    Activity duration:
    45-60 minutes

    Building block

    • Financial habits and norms

  • Learning to save with Money Monsters

    Updated

    Ideal for: Elementary school (K-1), Elementary school (2-3)

    Students listen to a story about saving money and then apply their learning using paper puppets.

    Key information

    Topic:
    Save and invest (Saving for long-term goals, Saving for short-term goals)
    Activity duration:
    45-60 minutes

    Building block

    • Executive function
    • Financial habits and norms

  • Coloring your savings

    Updated

    Ideal for: Elementary school (K-1)

    Students color pictures of dollar bills to show how much they’d need to save to buy different items.

    Key information

    Topic:
    Save and invest (Saving for short-term goals), Spend (Buying things)
    Activity duration:
    15-20 minutes

    Building block

    • Financial habits and norms

  • Saving for now and later

    Updated

    Ideal for: Elementary school (2-3), Elementary school (4-5)

    Students learn about the importance of saving, explore the difference between short-term and long-term goals, and then set their own savings goals.

    Key information

    Topic:
    Save and invest (Saving for long-term goals, Saving for short-term goals)
    Activity duration:
    45-60 minutes

    Building block

    • Executive function
    • Financial habits and norms
    • Financial knowledge and decision-making skills
Activities align with the My Money Five principles introduced by the statutorily created federal Financial Literacy and Education Commission.