Every kid deserves a teacher that will teach them about money.
The problem is that worksheets and a couple 30-minute lessons are not going to leave a lasting impact on your students.
You want to teach your students financial literacy skills, but you’re not sure exactly how to do it in a way where they have a real experience with money that they remember for years to come.
In 2014, I started what’s called a CLASSROOM ECONOMY
Students apply for class jobs and they get paid in classroom money. They use that classroom money to pay rent on their desks, pay any classroom fines for misbehavior, purchase items in a monthly auction, and buy their desk to watch it grow in value.
THE LASTING-IMPACT PLAN
Here is my plan for you to teach your students about money in a way that leaves a lasting impact
- Enroll in the course today
- Go through the first three FREE lessons
- Purchase the full course
- Join the Facebook group
- Start teaching your students about money in a way that leaves a lasting impact
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN
The course is broken up into 4 modules to help you begin to start teaching your students about money.
- MODULE 1 | The Set-Up
- You’ll learn about everything you need to do BEFORE you introduce the classroom economy to the students.
- MODULE 2 | The 1st Couple of Weeks
- You’ll learn how to roll out the classroom economy to your students from job applications to hiring to setting the virtual bank up.
- MODULE 3 | The Monthly Routines
- You’ll learn what the normal monthly routine looks like for fine day, bonus money day, and the auction.
- MODULE 4 | Later in The Year
- You’ll learn about the different things that come up later in the year including how to end the year well in the classroom economy.
LEAVE A LASTING IMPACT
When your students come to visit you years after they have left your classroom, they will not fondly remember the interest-rate worksheet they did. Give them an experience that will stay with them for years to come and will help them learn about money in a meaningful way through a classroom economy.
PITCHING YOUR ADMIN
Before you decide to purchase the course on your own, TALK TO YOUR ADMINISTRATION!
Many admin have PD funds for teachers and you don’t get what you don’t ask for. Even if you think they’ll say no, just ask. When you make the ask for this PD course, instead of asking “Can I have this”, tell them “This is why I need this, and this is how it will positively impact students”. Here are a few talking points:
- Google your state’s financial literacy standards and say how this course will help you address those standards with an ‘experiential-learning’ model. (If your state doesn’t have specific financial literacy standards, use the National Standards in K-12 Personal Finance Education by JumpStart – see lesson 1.1 in the course for more on that, which is one of the free lessons)
- Additionally, the classroom economy serves as a classroom management tool (through the use of classroom fines) that you’ll be able to implement with all of your classes and students. You’ll also receive guidance on how to incorporate the fines with students on behavior plans.
- Learning how to teach financial literacy will enable you to become a more effective teacher and a more valuable asset to the school.
- By becoming a more effective teacher, you will improve the outcomes of your students.
- The course provides many resources that are modifiable Google Docs, which is less lesson planning time on you and more time and energy to put towards building relationships with students and teacher self-care.
- When they say yes, bring your laptop to them so you can sign in with your own username and password but pay with the school PayPal or Stripe account.
TESTIMONIALS
“Thom helped give me the courage to try a classroom economy with my 5th graders by showing me how he implements it in his classroom. I really appreciated his thorough explanations, and it transformed my classroom into a fun, experiential learning environment.”
Aaron Riedl
“Thom’s course on Classroom Economy provided very practical advice on how to start, implement and maintain a classroom economy for middle school students. His videos are short and sweet and provide easy to follow instructions. Because of his course, I was able to start my economy very quickly. I highly recommend this course. My students love this system and have learned the value of a dollar.”
Tatiyana Webb M.Ed
INSTRUCTOR
Thom Gibson
Thom Gibson is a two-time Teacher-of-the-Year educator in Austin, TX, teaching middle school math, robotics, and YouTube Video Production. He’s been teaching students about money via a classroom economy since 2014. In addition to being the creator and host of the ‘Stories from the Classroom’ podcast, he also manages two YouTube channels; one showcasing reflections from his classroom and the other teaching viewers how to create and grow on YouTube. Outside of education, he’s a practitioner of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, has been learning mandarin for since 2018, loves to run, and is actively involved in his church.