Join our Homeschool National Financial Literacy Challenge; A NEW Challenge Starts Each Month!
The PersonalFinanceLab.com platform is a unique experiential learning resource for teaching Financial Literacy, Business and Economics subjects. Our combination of a personal budgeting game, a real-time stock game, and integrated standards-based curriculum with built-in assessments is designed to provide your students valuable, real-world skills that will last a lifetime.
Parents/Teachers can register an account for each student, and each account will have access to our personal budgeting game, stock game, 50 Personal Finance lessons, and 20 Introduction to the Stock Market lessons. But that doesn’t mean you have to require your students to compete in both games or complete the curriculum. It is just all included so you can mix and match games and curriculum. Parents/Teachers also receive a PDF of our Instructors Guide with Lesson Plans.
Our resources start by using our budgeting and stock games as long-term foundational activities – teachers usually dedicate at least 30 minutes per week for each game they choose to include. Students typically manage their long-term budget and/or stock game portfolio over a 6 to 12 week period.
The Budget Game
The PersonalFinanceLab.com Budgeting Game puts your students in the role of being a college student with a part-time job. Students learn to manage their variable weekly income from their jobs to balance their known bills and their unknown/random expenses to try and hit their savings goals at the end of each month. Each “Month” in the game takes about 20 minutes to complete. While we recommend that each student completes 12 virtual months so they experience everything the game has to offer, teachers can have longer or shorter games depending on their schedules.
To play, students roll virtual dice to progress through the game, moving forward a couple days at a time. At the end of each dice roll, students encounter an unexpected (and usually unpleasant) event that will impact their cashflow – a flat tire on the way to work, an unexpected inspection from their landlord, and hundreds of other realistic situations. Students also choose how to spend each weekend – work extra hours for extra cash, study for their classes, take care of chores, or spend time with friends.
Oh, one more thing, students compete for monthly Amazon Gift Cards!
The Stock Game
Our real-time stock game is derived from our university platform that is used by over 80% of the top business schools in the United States–so you can be sure our platform is realistic. Students start off with 10 Introduction to the Stock Market lessons and a virtual $100,000 in a brokerage account.
Students build a portfolio of stocks, bonds, ETFs, and mutual funds at real-time prices. Our integrated research center shows income statements, balance sheets, cash flow statements, historical prices, analyst ratings, and much more – all formatted in a way that is easily digestible for beginners. As students start building a portfolio, there are 10 Intermediate Lessons for the students to increase their knowledge.
Watch class engagement soar with our live-streaming rankings, while students get engaged watching their portfolio tick up and down, while students’ Trading Notes give teachers/parents direct insight into the thought process behind every action.
Oh, one more thing, students compete for monthly Amazon Gift Cards!
The Curriculum
Our National Homeschool Financial Literacy Challenge includes 50 Personal Finance and 20 Stock Market Lessons. The Personal Finance lessons are aligned to the Jumpstart Standards. Each lesson takes 10 minutes or less to complete, with each ending with a “Pop Quiz” to ensure students comprehension. It is recommended that students try to complete between 5 and 10 lessons per week. Both the budget game and the stock game include reminders to the students that they need to complete the assigned lessons. Since the curriculum is entirely web-based, it also works great as homework!
Our customizable lesson plan library shows how to integrate our lessons and activities with your classes. We designed our lesson plans to be flexible enough to be used on their own or combined with any of your favorite lessons you already use in class.
This short lesson introduces students to the concept of a “stock”. We combine text, infographics, and videos, and wrap up with a pop quiz to measure comprehension.
Our curriculum aligns to state and national standards for Personal Finance, Economics, Accounting, Management, and Career Development classes.
We also took our most popular lessons and turned them into Google Slides and PowerPoint presentations to save you time! Download whichever you like and use them out-of-the-box or as a starting point for your own lessons!
Using PersonalFinanceLab
Step One: Register Accounts for Your Students
Start by registering as a teacher/parent and requesting the number of accounts that you need. It is best to use one per student so that each student gets to complete ALL of the integrated lessons.
In the personal budgeting game, students take on the role of a college student managing their variable income from a part-time job and fixed and variable expenses from paying tuition through insurance, all while working on building their credit score, savings account, overall net worth, and personal well-being.
While the budgeting game teachers students how to manage their week to week and month to month cash flow, the stock market game helps them understand how to invest for the long term. Students use trade notes to document their strategy as they apply concepts learned from the Intro and Intermediate stock market lessons. The rankings keep everyone engaged.
Step Two: Students Log In
When you register you will request the number of accounts you need for your students. The website will assign you that number of usernames and passwords. Pass these out to each of your students so they can login.
When your students login, there will be a button in the main navigation that allows them to toggle back and forth between the Budget Game and the Stock Market Game. The lessons will appear in the right column of each page.
On the Budget Game, students will have to adjust and accept a monthly budget. For the first month, they should just accept the default and try to reach the designated savings goal. For the Stock Market Game, the students will have a virtual $100,000 and they will need to do some of the Intro to the Stock Market lessons to show them how to get started.
Step Three: Students Compete And Learn; Teachers Track Their Progress
Every time your students log to check their class assignments, they are also greeted by their portfolio, and their live class rankings. Class rankings keep students engaged with the stock game, while progressing through their assignments and lessons.
As the teacher, you also get complete access to all student progress, including different reports showing trading activity and assignment progress. Once your screens and/or tickers are installed, start broadcasting your class rankings, lesson snippets, and financial data to turn your classroom into the coolest room at your school!
Register Your Students & Receive Your Logins
There are new challenges for homeschool students each month! We give away Amazon Gift Cards to the top performing students across the country both for their performance in the Budget Game and Stock Game!
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