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Building a Financially Fit Future for Youth

Dear Parent/Guardian,

I am pleased to announce that we are introducing a financial literacy curriculum this year in your child’s classroom. The program includes a “learn, earn, and save” approach to help students build their personal finance knowledge and develop sound financial habits. The program was developed by FitMoney, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit, and is being used in five school districts this year. To learn more about FitMoney, go to www.fitmoney.org.

The curriculum includes topics such as saving, borrowing, earning, and planning for the future. Teachers will be monitoring student progress through two short assessments and daily observations.

I would like to encourage you to engage in meaningful conversations with your student about the simple financial concepts covered in class. To aid in these conversations, a Family Conversation Guide one pager will be sent home after each lesson. The goal is to highlight some key learnings from class and provide potential discussion questions and activities that you can do at home.

Best Regards,

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WHAT DID WE LEARN IN SCHOOL?

Today in class, your student learned to identify, sort, count, and compare pennies and dimes as well as $1, and $10 bills.

QUESTIONS WE DISCUSSED AT SCHOOL:

Which coin/bill has the least/most value?
What are the differences between coins and bills?

CONVERSATION STARTERS TO TRY AT HOME:

What are the names of the coins/bills on the bottom of this paper?
What is the value of each coin/bill on the bottom of the paper?
Where have you seen our family use coins and bills?
Do we use mainly coins or bills?

KINDERGARTEN LESSON: MEET YOUR MONEY

Dump out a coin jar or wallet and have your student sort the coins and discuss each coin’s value and name.

Possibly count to see how many of each coin you have and then determine the value of all the coins.

(Remember that your student only learned about pennies, dimes, one and ten-dollar bills today - so any other coin or bill you introduce may be new!)

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WHAT DID WE LEARN IN SCHOOL?

Today your student set a savings goal, discussed ways to keep money safe, and possibly created an envelope to track (and maybe hold) any money for savings.

QUESTIONS WE DISCUSSED AT SCHOOL:

What is a savings goal?
What are ways to keep money safe?
When I put money in the bank is it still mine?

CONVERSATION STARTERS TO TRY AT HOME:

How would you like to keep your money safe at home?
What was your savings goal that you came up with in class today?
Discuss times when you saved for something and even though the waiting was hard, it was worth it!
Discuss ways that to save and possibly create a “rule” to follow like “save a quarter for every dollar I receive.”
Discuss a potential family savings goal (like a movie night) and have your student help save towards that goal.

KINDERGARTEN LESSON: SMART SAVERS

Create a jar/piggy bank at home where your student can keep his/her money safe and possibly tape the picture of his/her goal to the jar/piggy bank.

You can also create 3 containers: one for saving, one for spending right now, and one for donating (donating or “sharing” will come up in a later lesson).

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WHAT DID WE LEARN IN SCHOOL?

Today your student listed a number of different jobs and learned that people earn money in return for work.

QUESTIONS WE DISCUSSED AT SCHOOL:

What is a job?
Why do people have jobs?

CONVERSATION STARTERS TO TRY AT HOME:

What jobs did you learn about today?
Were there any jobs that you thought you might like?
Discuss what you or other family members/family friends do for work, pointing out that people work to earn money for things they need and want and to save.
Discuss how people work hard to earn money and also that people feel proud and happy when they do good work.

KINDERGARTEN LESSON: WHAT’S A JOB?

Around your community point out people who have different jobs and explain what that person does. (For example: cashier, gas station attendant, nurse, doctor, delivery person, etc.)

Watch the video that your student watched in class and possibly others at https://www.sesamestreet.org/toolkits/save .

Scroll to the bottom of this site for additional discussion ideas.

If possible, take your student to work on a work day or on the weekend to show them your work area and explain what you do as simply as possible. As a part of the explanation, tell them that you receive money when you work and that this money is what enables you to pay for the things at home and save.

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WHAT DID WE LEARN IN SCHOOL?

Today in class, your student discussed ways to share time, money and things.

QUESTIONS WE DISCUSSED AT SCHOOL:

Why is it important to donate time, things, or money?
We need to donate things that are still in good condition.

CONVERSATION STARTERS TO TRY AT HOME:

What are charities and causes that are important to our family?
What are things that we could donate?
How else have we/could we donate our time, things, or money?

KINDERGARTEN LESSON: DONATION AND GIVING

Set up the “give” jar and discuss with your child when and how much to put into the jar. Just like the savings jar, each time we receive money we can put a portion of it into the “give” jar. Discuss a charity or organization that you can donate things to and find items in good condition that your student wants to donate.

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Dear Parent/Guardian,

Your student recently completed their last financial literacy lesson for this year. During these lessons we covered a lot about how to manage money in our daily lives, including how we earn, save and give. Thank you for your participation in the learning process. We hope that these lessons sparked as much conversation at home as they did in class!

To continue these conversations, and for more ideas about how to further your student’s financial knowledge please see the resources below.

themint.org/kids

sesamestreet.org/toolkits/save

bethkobliner.com/

thebalance.com/

fitmoney.org/parent resources

Best Regards,