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Students are introduced to the roles of entrepreneur and investor in the context of starting a business through the book, Isabel’s Car Wash. After discussing the story, students are divided into entrepreneur and investor groups for a business start-up.

Use St. Louis Fed classroom resources in your Google Classroom. We’ve taken existing award-winning lessons and converted them to Google docs and Google slides so that you can use them virtually with your students.

Students listen to the story Ox-Cart Man in which a father and his family use various resources to produce goods. They will use examples from the story to apply the concepts learned.

It’s important that students in grades 3-5 build on their understanding of basic economics and personal finance concepts and begin to develop knowledge of more advanced concepts. Here are some great lessons, online courses and videos you can use to integrate personal finance and economics into your third- through fifth-grade classes in reading, language arts and mathematics. Kids can practice important language arts and mathematics skills while learning about making choices, opportunity cost, resources, complementary and substitute goods, and more.

We know that you have limited time to search for great classroom materials for teaching economics and personal finance. To make it easier, the Econ Ed team has sorted by grade level and put together our best resources for integrating economics and personal finance into language arts, mathematics, and social studies classes. Just click on a link below to find anything from lesson plans to online courses and videos for teaching personal finance and economics.

Use these questions with children 7 to 10 years old to discuss the following economic concepts in One Cent, Two Cents, Old Cent, New Cent: All About Money: barter, characteristics of money, interest, and money.

Use these questions with children 10 to 13 years old to discuss the following economic concepts in Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry: mortgage, note, and collateral.

Students hear a story about Peanut Butter, a slice of bread with peanut butter, who is looking for a friend. They hear about examples of complement and substitute goods and participate in an activity where they are given a good and they find a partner with a substitute or a complement for that good. They conclude by singing a song about complements and substitutes. The lesson provides the basis for understanding that a change in the price of one good affects the demand for goods that are complements to or substitutes for that good.

This lesson introduces the problems associated with debt through viewing The Dangerous Pet PowerPoint. Students learn about budgeting and plan ways to earn income to pay off a group debt.

Students learn how businesses use advertising to influence the choices consumers make. Using magazines, students see that advertisements use a combination of facts and opinions to influence tastes and preferences. Students also listen to a story about a Korean-American family that owns a food cart. They learn how the business changes as a result of competition and how business owners can influence consumers’ tastes and preferences. Working in groups, students create print advertisements for the food cart in the book to see firsthand how advertisements can influence consumers’ choices through tastes and preferences.