The classroom economy program is an effective and enjoyable way to teach your students fundamental financial literacy components without altering your curriculum.

Implementing the program is an easy three-step process:

1. Before the school year starts, you spend a few hours gathering materials and planning how to customize the program for your school and your own classroom.
2. During the first month of school, you spend some classroom time introducing the program and training the students to complete their tasks.
3. Throughout the year, you monitor the students' progress and provide support and guidance when necessary.

As they perform their tasks, the students will help you manage the classroom and, in the process, learn valuable skills—such as responsibility, the value of saving, and delayed gratification—that they will carry with them throughout life.

The beauty of the program is that you don't need to teach these lessons; rather, your students will experience them and learn for themselves. As one teacher told us, there's a thrill in seeing "the lightbulb go on" when a student realizes he or she should have saved money for the next month's rent instead of overpaying for an item at the auction.

Core objectives for students in Grades 7-8

Through My Classroom Economy, students learn valuable life skills in an experiential way.

Specifically, they are able to:

• Take part in a simulation of real-world economic activity.
• Learn the value of earning a paycheck, as they bank the salaries from their jobs.
• Learn how to budget their spending, balance a checking account, and make scheduled payments.
• Discover the importance of saving money to obtain what they want.
• Describe the purpose of paying taxes.
• Find out that every decision has an opportunity cost.

At these grade levels, students continue to earn and spend dollar amounts of three and four digits to match their math skills, but also begin to learn more advanced financial concepts. Students pay an electricity bill, in addition to their rent, and also pay taxes for the first time.