Financial Literacy Final Project

I just finished a class on Financial Literacy in the Classroom. There is a website with a ton of resources you can check out if you are interested in teaching your kids more about finances. In the meantime, my final project requires that I teach a lesson from the website and report on it. The report is here, and the pictures are displayed below. There is something wrong with my camera, but one can still tell what is going on.

When I first got out the 3 sorting circles, the kids decided to use them to play musical circles. I took a picture, because one of the lessons I could have chosen but did not used musical chairs to teach about scarcity . . . looks like we got a bonus lesson.

The kids with their bags all packed for Grandma's house.

The wants and needs sorting circles.

Due to the problem with my camera, it is hard to tell that the pillow, blanket,  and sweatshirt are in the needs pile, and the books in the wants pile. The football is also in the needs pile, but it was hotly contested by this little girl. (See reflective paper.)

This is the order of importance of the selected items for this little girl. (Most important is on our left.)

The little boy has a different order of importance for the items.

The second group put a stuffed monkey and a basketball in the wants category, and a pillow, smoke detector, toothbrush, and fluoride in the needs category. I tried to talk about the fact that most houses already have a smoke detector, but they were insistent that the "what if there isn't one" issue was important.

These boys actually agreed on the order of things for their items. While the basketball was identified as being a want, they still found it more important than fluoride and a toothbrush, which were identified as needs.

The kids are all looking at the words on the computer screen here as they sing along with Raffi's All I Really Need.

The assessment showed exactly what I learned while teaching the lesson - needs and wants can be relative to the situation. The child asked, "Is a tv a need or a want?" I said, "What do you think?" "Well," he said, "I think you need it to know what's happening, like Dad needed it tonight to know the votes." He also said he was going to put cell phone on the line because sometimes it's a need and sometimes a want. I have decided that this should be taught as prioritizing, instead of black and white categories.