More specifically, financial literacy. In the new B.C. curriculum, we are moving away from simple identification of currency and your basic adding and subtracting of sums. The new curriculum uses the term financial literacy for a reason: we want our students to become skills with all aspects of money, especially how to earn, spend and save it. To help students practice these skills, I created a classroom economy that all students will be participating in for the next several weeks. We discussed the terms economy and currency and talk about what their experiences with money has been like so far. When I told the students we were going to be creating our own class economy system, they got very , very excited. First we discussed how they would earn their money. Every two weeks, they will receive a paycheque. The base salary they will all receive for their jobs of being students is $20 a week, to be paid out twice monthly. Then we discussed other ways students could earn more money. Students were excited to learn that extra work earned extra pay. Students were each given a bank account in the class bank to keep their money safe. Next, we discussed how they could spend their money. Our class will have the opportunity to go shopping once a week on Fridays. I have provided numerous items that might tempt them; from coupons allowing them tech time with the iPad to being able to choose any desk in the classroom. There are also items they can purchase such as school supplies, toys and snacks. Each student will be responsible for keeping track of their money by using chequebooks supplied my Mrs. Vieira. In these chequebooks, students will record any money they have both earned and spent. Each week, they chequebooks will be handed into Mrs. Vieira for double checking and before payday for paycheque to be calculated. Monday was the class's first opportunity to go shopping and a vast majority of the class spent most of their money. Some spent all their money on one item, and other spent most of their money on several smaller items. It will be very interesting to see how shopping patterns change and adapt as we go through our financial literacy unit, especially when we start talking about responsible spending and saving. Students who spend all their money this week might be a bit disappointed when a sale occurs, they have no money left and payday is still a week away. :)
This is my first time trying a classroom economy and I'm as excited as the students to see how it goes. If you have anything at home that you would like to donate as an item to be added to our classroom store, I would be very grateful. So far, all items have been bought using my own money but I think this experience is well worth the cost. I will keep you updated with how well our classroom economy and financial literacy unit is going. Have a great day Mrs. Vieira
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All about Mrs. VieiraI'm new to JKE and new to the school district but I've been a teacher in B.C. since 2008. I love art, animals and my family, which includes my daughter who is 1 year old. Archives
May 2018
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