REAL WORLD LIFE SKILLS PERSONAL FINANCE MINI UNIT

· This Personal Finance mini unit is often described as having the biggest impact on students’ real-world understanding.

· Often, these lessons are the first-time students have been asked to consider their relationship with money, their knowledge of how much goods and services cost, and their own values.

· Students will examine income, expenses, and household budget in order to understand how their career salaries will be put to use in the real world. Knowing the different salary withholdings and the real cost of purchasing and maintain a home will show students that careers and money are not simply concepts, but real, concrete, and tangible responsibilities.

· It is imperative to give students ample time to examine their current knowledge, research financial terms and concepts, and continuously compare their learning to their prior knowledge. Students will come with a wide variety of financial literacy and knowledge, depending on how open their parents/guardians are with their family’s financial information. Some students will require more time and energy to discover information while others may already be familiar.

· Sensitivity to the wide variety of students’ financial situations should also be stressed, especially during open discussions. Your expectations of respect and/or confidentiality should be made clear at the beginning of the unit, so that students use these assignments to truly and honestly explore their relationship to money in order to develop responsible ideas and practices for their futures.

This is fun for the kids and an eye opener. After they learn about writing checks, filling out deposit slips and checking transaction sheets, net and gross income meanings, disposable income, salary and paying bills, they end up getting married, having children and buying a house. It’s a rude awakening and so valuable for their future. After some of the students realize that taking care of children is very expensive, they say to me that they want to give back their children, lol. Then, when they say things such as, the refrigerator is really expensive so I can just get a cooler in my kitchen, lol. Also, when I tell them they have to buy expensive clothes like Abercrombie and Fitch, they say that they would rather shop at Walmart and Kmart because they don’t have enough disposable income, lol

I’ll never forget the time when a parent walked up to me and asked me what I did to her child. She said that her daughter asked her if it was in her budget to send her to a private all girls school. Both parents just looked at each other and said what is going on? Lol

Very valuable for sure.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/REAL-WORLD-LIFE-SKILLS-Personal-Finance-and-Understand-Income-DIGITAL-4458011

OVERVIEW

Students will explore, research, and understand several components of income. Most importantly, they will learn that a yearly salary figure does not equal their take-home amount, nor what they should budget to spend each month. Ample time should be given for in-class discussion, questions, and sharing to help students fully understand the nuances of income, deductions, withholdings, and savings.

TIME

3-4 days

MATERIALS

Worksheets

Scissors

Stapler

Computer

Calculator

Pen or pencil

Rubric

Answer Keys

STUDENT OBJECTIVES

· Students will research various terms related to income.

· Students will reflect on their awareness of monthly spending and material costs.

· Students will calculate monthly savings and expenses with a checkbook.

1. Have the students cut out 30 checks and 3 transaction sheets that are attached to the following worksheets. (There is now an editable version so you may choose what would best fit for your class.

a. Print the checks and pass out 10 sheets to each student.

b. Print out the transaction sheets and distribute 3 pages for each student.

2. Assign students to cut the checks and transaction sheets for homework and that way it won’t use a lot of class time. They should have the checkbook and transaction sheets stapled. The transaction sheets should go at the end of all the checks an on the first day of your lesson.

3. To start off with the lesson by passing out calculators and making sure they have their own checkbook. Begin telling the students that they will be pretending that they were hired for a job. I tell the students that they are all computer programmers making $50,000 so all the math will be consistent with the class when working on the calculations. They will learn about:

a. Gross Income - individual income before taxes and deductions

b. Net Income - the amount of money you earned after expenses

c. Disposable Income - the money that you have left over once expenses, taxes, health insurance, etc. have been subtracted from your gross income.

4. Then as you assign the house worksheets, tell them they got married and have 2 children. See page 14 for specific instructions This is when everything starts to click with the students and realizing that everyday life is expensive. Obviously, students will understand financial expenses and what the real-life entails.

This lesson is extremely fun to teach and it’s great to see the finance connection with the students and how they relate to their own lives.

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NOW EDITABLE VERSION AVAILABLE

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