Is it hard to integrate the six financial literacy standards into your already packed school year? Check out all six standards here.

Standard 1:
Make informed, financially responsible decisions
Students will apply financial literacy reasoning in order to make informed, financially responsible decisions.

Standard 2:
Relate careers, education, and income
Students will relate choices regarding their education and career paths to earning potential.

Standard 3:
Plan and manage money
Students will develop skills to plan and manage money effectively by identifying financial goals and developing spending plans.

Standard 4:
Manage credit and debt
Students will develop skills to make informed decisions about incurring debt and maintaining credit worthiness.

Standard 5:
Create and build wealth
Students will develop skills to plan and achieve long-term goals related to saving and investing in order to build financial security and wealth.

Standard 6:
Manage risks and preserve wealth
Students will develop financial planning skills to minimize financial setbacks.

Here are some ways to integrate each standard into your classroom management and make them your best practice for all students to access.

Start by creating a currency for your classroom. If you already have a school-wide system (like tickets or stickers) then you can use that as your currency, if you would like to create your own for your classroom only, that is great too. Check out these websites (Make Some Money, New Money) to be able to make and print out your own money (currency).

In my classroom and for our Third Grade team, we created (Woodkee’s) it is a combination of our last names.

Then create different values, you can print the money on multiple color papers to indicate different amount (pink, green, yellow, etc.) or print off different amount papers. Create a chart to indicate which color is which amount.

Then set up a class Bankaroo account or other web-based tool to add your students into your class. This will allow them to bank and unbank their money. Bankaroo allows you to automatically deposit or withdraw money (used for class jobs). You can also allow the students to deposit or withdraw their earned money.

Set rules:
It is important to set up a financial community in the beginning of the school year and to set ground rules. Rules would include letting the students know how they can earn, spend and pay fees throughout the year.

Assign Jobs:

After you get the students acclimated, hand off some of the jobs and responsibilities to your students. You should have a class banker, bill exchange student, and tellers.