Volunteer Classroom Resources

Below are several lessons that can be used during your volunteer experience. They are divided by grade level, K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. You will notice that we provided a Lesson Guide and the Student Activity for each of the grade levels. Please consider downloading both versions and duplicating enough activities to accommodate the number of students in the class that you are going to visit.

Kindergarten - 2nd Grade

Lesson 6: How We Save Story 6: A Savings Problem

The class hears a story about Nicholas’s family during a time of unexpected financial emergency. Students experience scarcity as they try to fit everything they want into a pocket. They learn about depositing and withdrawing money as they participate in a savings game. They learn that good savers often have a plan on how and when to save.

Lesson Guide

Student Activity

3rd Grade - 5th Grade

Lesson 4: The Grasshopper and the Ant

In this lesson, children use an adaptation of Aesop’s fable, “The Grasshopper and the Ant,” to learn about the trade-off between satisfying wants today and planning for the future. Children use the fable to examine their own behaviors and decisions about saving. They learn how interest provides an incentive to save. Writing their own fable provides the children with a creative way to express their ideas about the importance of consuming and saving decisions.

Lesson Guide

Student Activity

Lesson 5: Why? How? and Where?

This lesson provides some practical activities to extend students’ understanding about how to make saving choices. Children set a goal, determine a strategy for saving, and decide how they will save to best achieve that goal. They can also learn the basics of using savings accounts.

Lesson Guide

Student Activity

6th Grade - 8th Grade

Lesson 6: Why Save?

In this lesson, the students learn about saving and investing, and they consider the importance of setting short-term, medium-term, and long term savings goals. They use math skills to solve problems and they play a game called “Rolling For a Goal” to reinforce the concept of goal setting and working towards a goal. Finally, they engage in a family activity that focuses on the opportunity cost of saving.

Lesson Guide

Student Activity

9th Grade - 12th Grade

Lesson 10: Investment Bingo

Knowledgeable investing involves choosing among many alternatives. A first step is to learn the language of investing and to understand at least some of the basic investment alternatives. Investment Bingo is a vocabulary-building contest involving investment terms.

Lesson Guide

Student Activity

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