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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 30 matches out of 136 activities

Showing 30 matches out of 136 activities

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  • Meeting your future self

    Updated

    Ideal for: Elementary school (4-5), Middle school (6-8)

    Students imagine their lives in 10 years and write a fill-in-the-blank letter from their future selves to their current selves.

    Key information

    Topic:
    Earn (Learning about careers, Making money), Save and invest (Saving for long-term goals)
    Activity duration:
    45-60 minutes
    Available in Spanish

    Building block

    • Executive function
    • Financial habits and norms

  • Exploring saving and spending game

    Updated

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

    Students play a game where they earn and spend money to learn how our choices affect how we’re able to save.

    Key information

    Topic:
    Earn (Making money), Save and invest (Choosing how to save), Protect (Managing risk), Spend (Buying things), Borrow (Getting loans)
    Activity duration:
    45-60 minutes

    Building block

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

  • Exploring entrepreneurship

    Updated

    Ideal for: Elementary school (4-5), Middle school (6-8)

    Students read a book about starting a business, think of an idea for a product they can create or improve, and design a plan for selling it.

    Key information

    Topic:
    Earn (Becoming an entrepreneur, Learning about careers, Making money)
    Activity duration:
    75-90 minutes

    Building block

    • Executive function
    • Financial habits and norms

  • Drawing your own business comic strip

    Updated

    Ideal for: Elementary school (4-5), Middle school (6-8)

    Students explore entrepreneurship by reading a story about entrepreneurs and drawing a comic strip about starting a business.

    Key information

    Topic:
    Earn (Becoming an entrepreneur, Learning about careers, Making money)
    Activity duration:
    75-90 minutes

    Building block

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

  • Exploring opportunity costs

    Updated

    Ideal for: Elementary school (4-5), Middle school (6-8)

    Students read a book about the opportunity costs of starting a business, play a fill-in-the-blank game, and discuss things they could give up so they can have something else.

    Key information

    Topic:
    Earn (Becoming an entrepreneur, Learning about careers, Making money), Spend (Buying things)
    Activity duration:
    75-90 minutes

    Building block

    • Executive function
    • Financial knowledge and decision-making skills

  • Playing a business game

    Updated

    Ideal for: Elementary school (4-5), Middle school (6-8)

    Students read a book about starting a business and then play a game to explore things that can happen when you run a business.

    Key information

    Topic:
    Earn (Becoming an entrepreneur, Learning about careers, Making money)
    Activity duration:
    45-60 minutes

    Building block

    • Financial knowledge and decision-making skills

  • Using a buying plan

    Updated

    Ideal for: Elementary school (4-5), Middle school (6-8)

    Students read a scenario and then practice creating a buying plan and comparison shopping for a computer.

    Key information

    Topic:
    Spend (Budgeting, Buying things)
    Activity duration:
    45-60 minutes

    Building block

    • Executive function
    • 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

  • Spending more than money on a pet

    Updated

    Ideal for: Elementary school (4-5)

    Students read a story and then write a persuasive paragraph about a pet they’d like to own.

    Key information

    Topic:
    Spend (Buying things)
    Activity duration:
    45-60 minutes

    Building block

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

  • Using a budget to shop for a party

    Updated

    Ideal for: Elementary school (4-5)

    Students learn about budgets and then use a budget to decide what food to buy for an imaginary party.

    Key information

    Topic:
    Spend (Budgeting, Buying things)
    Activity duration:
    45-60 minutes

    Building block

    • Executive function
    • 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.