April is financial
literacy month. Educators of pre-k age
students are given the task to integrate study theme topic content and 21st
century content throughout lesson plans and classroom instructional
practices. This article will focus on
“financial, economic, business and entrepreneurial literacy” taken from the
list adapted from the 21st Century Partnership’s Milestones for
Improving Learning and Education (MILE) Guide and served as a foundation for
the North Carolina Professional Standards.
The lesson
plans and activities throughout the learning environment reinforce financial
knowledge of money, currency, and credit/debit card, saving and so forth in
relationship to daily life. Create a
focus board on a bulletin board, tri-fold display board or chart paper on
various related content information on financial literacy. Some examples are US coins and currency with
name included in different languages (English, Spanish, sign language)
checkbook, bank statement and plastic credit card. The Internet is a good resource to secure
other countries currency.
After
secured information from different countries use the world map to plot, discuss
and place related pictorial/written information on country. The students can tell country or state they
would like to travel to displaying and discussing how to travel, cost, method
of payment, clothes for trip, saving money and so forth.
Various centers
can be changed giving the feel of being in that state or country. Discuss,
display name of event, photo, and cost, passport and other needed steps. Students can create passport with
photo. The block center can have
blueprints of different buildings, modes of transportation to build that will
be followed up with planning cost, designing, and building
collaboratively. A guest speaker can
share his/her experiences that is cultural developmental age appropriate conversation.
Engage the
students in upcoming activities by recording materials, discuss cost and how to
obtain good and/or services. Students
can record entries in the journal to show their level(s) of financial literacy.
Remember,
finance literacy will be related to past, present, and future activities
throughout the school year. It is
important to help students understand using money responsibility that the
skills will be taken into their future.
Check out
the slide show to view a few of in class activities reinforcing financial
literacy. Here are some other ideas.
1. Graph how many pennies long item is
and record,
2. Create coin patters by color, upper
case letter, lower case letter, coin shape and so forth,
3. Create coin and/or currency lace
cards and/or puzzle,
4. Let students dictate their story on
financial literacy accompanied with their picture, and
5. Sink and float different number of
coins on different objects. Record
predictions and hypothesis first then afterward record to see who’s guesses
were correct.
Share
different ways you help preschoolers understand financial knowledge.
