Bring Financial Literacy to your Classroom!
We have worked with local professionals, teachers, and students to create 3 different financial literacy lessons that can easily fit into normal class periods:
Lesson 1: Budgeting - Tools for Spending and Saving
What’s Covered: wants vs. needs, income and paycheck deductions, banking tools and requirements (Ex. “What do you need to open a checking account?”), making economical lifestyle choices, and budgeting.
*Includes: Checking and savings accounts, debit cards vs. credit Cards, overdraft fees
Lesson 2: Credit - Risks and Benefits
What’s Covered:Defining credit, establishing and building credit, credit scores, interest, risks of credit and identity theft.
Lesson 3: Buying a Car and Associated Costs
What is Covered: How interest rates, down payments, and loan lengths impact monthly payments, along with other costs associated with car ownership.
Our Financial Literacy Volunteers:
Our speakers come from a wide range of backgrounds—finance, banking, business, education— and all have a passion for educating young people about personal finance. Each volunteer has completed a “Teaching Financial Literacy Training”, through which they received teacher tips on how to effectively deliver their message.
The Role Teachers Play in Lesson Delivery:
- Printing enough lesson materials for students (provided by Partners).
- Reminding volunteers to administer assessments before/after lesson (teachers may also give students pre-assessments prior to volunteer’s arrival).
- Collecting assessment tests at the end of lesson and holding on to them for Partners to pick up.
- Supporting volunteers as needed before and during lesson delivery.
- Since this is a pilot program, we need your feedback! As you observe these lessons in your classroom, we appreciate any advice you can share about ways to refine our lesson frameworks and to better prepare our volunteers to be effective guest speakers.
For more information: Request a Financial Literacy Lesson or contact Chelsea Duffy at cpduffy@sbceo.org.
Special thanks to President’s Council member, Montecito Bank & Trust, and to Financial Coach, Ann B. Hutchins, for collaborating with Partners in Education in developing our financial literacy lessons and training volunteers to deliver them.