Monday, October 27, 2014

Kids and Money: Increasing a Village’s Financial Literacy


A few months back I was looking for resources on children’s financial literacy online (gotta start 'em young!) and stumbled upon a really great workbook from the Cleveland Fed- available in English here and Spanish here.  Available for free- printed or mailed, in English or Spanish- this workbook is awesome.  It’s a great general overview of money management for late elementary school aged children and covers money and finance in three parts: earn, spend, and save. 

Since kids generally seem to be more open to new ideas and are still forming their long-term habits and opinions, I was especially excited introduce this information to the elementary school classes in my site.  My friend Zoe, who my community loves, came to visit and help out with the charla and was a ton of help.  I’ve noticed that community members, kids included, really seem to put more weight on things I teach if I bring in someone from outside the community. 

We spent two hours teaching about 20 4th, 5th, and 6th graders about how they can use their skills to earn a little bit of extra money, why they shouldn’t spend everything they have, and how to be an informed buyer.  I was really proud of how well they did on their exercises, and am excited to help them with their plans to earn money in the future.  One of the older children is even saving money to buy a piglet to raise and sell.  If he grows a nice sized pig into full maturity, he could stand to earn almost $100- a 300% return on investment!

I’m going to be going back for a little follow-up and homework review this coming week.  Hopefully I’ll find book bags full of completed activities and minds eager to learn more about finance!  As always, if you’ve seen any resources that you think we could benefit by, please send me an email at abbyexplores@gmail.com.  We’re always excited to try new things!

 


No comments:

Post a Comment