Find activities that can help you teach and nurture the building blocks of financial capability across the curriculum.
These classroom activities can be completed within a single class period. Each activity comes with a teacher guide and supporting student material, so it’s easy to implement whether you’re an experienced personal finance teacher, integrating financial literacy into another subject area, or supplementing your existing financial education curriculum.
Search for activities
Skip to search results
Showing 15 matches out of 136 activities
Showing 15 matches out of 136 activities
Filters applied
Understanding jobs, teens, and taxes
Updated
Ideal for: High school (9-10), High school (11-12)
Students read a handout about taxes and respond to questions to explore the relationship between working and taxes.
Key information
Topic:
Earn (Becoming an entrepreneur, Getting paid, Making money, Paying taxes)
Activity duration:
15-20 minutes
Building block
- Financial knowledge and decision-making skills
Becoming familiar with taxes
Updated
Ideal for: High school (9-10), High school (11-12)
Students match tax types to definitions and then apply their knowledge to tax scenarios.
Key information
Topic:
Earn (Becoming an entrepreneur, Paying taxes)
Activity duration:
45-60 minutes
Building block
- Financial knowledge and decision-making skills
Exploring entrepreneurship
Updated
Ideal for: Elementary school (4-5), Middle school (6-8)
Students read a book about starting a business, think of an idea for a product they can create or improve, and design a plan for selling it.
Key information
Topic:
Earn (Becoming an entrepreneur, Learning about careers, Making money)
Activity duration:
75-90 minutes
Building block
- Executive function
- Financial habits and norms
Drawing your own business comic strip
Updated
Ideal for: Elementary school (4-5), Middle school (6-8)
Students explore entrepreneurship by reading a story about entrepreneurs and drawing a comic strip about starting a business.
Key information
Topic:
Earn (Becoming an entrepreneur, Learning about careers, Making money)
Activity duration:
75-90 minutes
Building block
- Financial habits and norms
- Financial knowledge and decision-making skills
Exploring opportunity costs
Updated
Ideal for: Elementary school (4-5), Middle school (6-8)
Students read a book about the opportunity costs of starting a business, play a fill-in-the-blank game, and discuss things they could give up so they can have something else.
Key information
Topic:
Earn (Becoming an entrepreneur, Learning about careers, Making money), Spend (Buying things)
Activity duration:
75-90 minutes
Building block
- Executive function
- Financial knowledge and decision-making skills
Playing a business game
Updated
Ideal for: Elementary school (4-5), Middle school (6-8)
Students read a book about starting a business and then play a game to explore things that can happen when you run a business.
Key information
Topic:
Earn (Becoming an entrepreneur, Learning about careers, Making money)
Activity duration:
45-60 minutes
Building block
- Financial knowledge and decision-making skills
Researching the gig economy
Updated
Ideal for: High school (9-10), High school (11-12)
Students conduct research about the gig economy, identify benefits and drawbacks to gig work, and reflect on whether gig work would be right for them.
Key information
Topic:
Earn (Learning about careers, Making money)
Activity duration:
45-60 minutes
Building block
- Financial habits and norms
- Financial knowledge and decision-making skills
Getting banked
Updated
Ideal for: High school (9-10), High school (11-12)
Students select a local bank or credit union to research to learn about what to consider when choosing a financial institution.
Key information
Topic:
Earn (Becoming an entrepreneur), Save and invest (Banking options, Choosing how to save), Spend (Buying things, Paying bills)
Activity duration:
45-60 minutes
Building block
- Financial habits and norms
- Financial knowledge and decision-making skills
Investigating payroll tax and federal income tax withholding
Updated
Ideal for: High school (9-10), High school (11-12)
Students analyze W-4 forms and pay stubs in order to better understand payroll taxes and federal income tax withholding.
Key information
Topic:
Earn (Becoming an entrepreneur, Getting paid, Making money, Paying taxes)
Activity duration:
45-60 minutes
Building block
- Financial knowledge and decision-making skills
Creating a poster on life after high school
Updated
Ideal for: High school (9-10), High school (11-12)
Students create a poster or infographic illustrating post-secondary education or workforce options they're interested in.
Key information
Topic:
Earn (Learning about careers, Making money)
Activity duration:
45-60 minutes
Building block
- Financial knowledge and decision-making skills
Activities align with the My Money Five principles introduced by the statutorily created federal Financial Literacy and Education Commission.
