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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 12 matches out of 251 activities

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Budgeting
Buying things
Elementary school (4-5)

  • Understanding our money choices

    Updated

    Ideal for: Elementary school (4-5)

    Students discuss and reflect on how they think and feel about money and how the people in their lives help shape those thoughts and feelings.

    Key information

    Topic:
    Save and invest (Choosing how to save), Spend (Buying things)
    Activity duration:
    45-60 minutes

    Building block

    • Financial habits and norms

  • Building savings habits

    Updated

    Ideal for: Elementary school (4-5)

    Students discuss useful savings habits and then write captions for a comic strip about saving money.

    Key information

    Topic:
    Save and invest (Choosing how to save), Spend (Buying things)
    Activity duration:
    45-60 minutes

    Building block

    • Financial habits and norms
    • Financial knowledge and decision-making skills

  • Flying into spending and saving

    Updated

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

    Students fly a paper airplane they’ve created to targets that represent amounts of money saved or spent and track their results.

    Key information

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

    Building block

    • Executive function
    • Financial habits and norms

  • Bringing your own bag

    Updated

    Ideal for: Elementary school (4-5)

    Students read a short story and consider the benefits of making choices that are cost-effective.

    Key information

    Topic:
    Protect (Managing risk), Spend (Buying things)
    Activity duration:
    45-60 minutes

    Building block

    • Financial habits and norms
    • Financial knowledge and decision-making skills

  • Exploring needs and wants

    Updated

    Ideal for: Elementary school (K-1), Elementary school (2-3), Elementary school (4-5)

    Students review pictures of items and decide which ones are needs and which are wants.

    Key information

    Topic:
    Spend (Buying things)
    Activity duration:
    15-20 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.