Theme 1: Lesson 1 - Earning Income

The students play a guessing game, using clues to identify various occupations. They consider the education, skills, and talent required for those occupations, and, in doing so, analyze the connection between human capital and wages. They learn that income is payment people receive for selling or renting their productive resources -- their labor, for example, or their special knowledge.

Theme 1: Lesson 2 - Urban Mouse and Rural Mouse

The students use an index of businesses for a fictional community to learn why people create businesses to provide goods and services in their communities. They read an adaptation of the fable 'City Mouse, Country Mouse,' here titled 'Urban Mouse and Rural Mouse.' They use the story to learn about entrepreneurs, opportunity recognition, income, costs of production, and profit.

Theme 1: Lesson 3 - People Pay Taxes

The students participate in an activity designed to help them understand when and why people pay taxes. They learn about income and the differences between gross and net income. They learn that we pay taxes on income and that governments use tax revenue to provide goods and services. Many goods and services provided by government are particularly important because they are not likely to be provided by businesses.

Theme 2: Lesson 4 - The Grasshopper and the Ant

In reading and discussing an adaptation of Aesop's fable 'The Grasshopper and the Ant,' the students learn about the trade-off between satisfying wants today and planning for the future. They use the fable to examine their own behavior and decisions about saving. They learn that interest payments provide an incentive to save. They compose fables of their own, expressing their ideas about the importance of decisions about consuming and saving.

Theme 2: Lesson 5 - Saving Starts with Wanting More

This lesson provides activities designed to help students think clearly about decisions related to saving money. The students set a goal, determine a strategy for saving, and decide how they will save to achieve their goals. They also learn the basics of using savings accounts.

Theme 3: Lesson 6 - Consumers Want More Goods and Services

This lesson focuses on spending decisions, particularly the decisions that students make as consumers. The activities establish a rationale for the study of financial decision making. The lesson is introduced on one day and completed after the students have collected information over a week-long period.

Theme 3: Lesson 7 - To Choose Is to Refuse

By participating in a readers' theater activity, the students learn about opportunity cost as a key factor in decision making. They use the concept of opportunity cost in a related simulation activity, deciding which wants to satisfy with limited income.

Theme 3: Lesson 8 - How Would You Like to Pay?

The students are introduced to various methods of payment, such as cash, check, debit and credit cards, and electronic or online payments. They learn about the advantages and disadvantages of each method of payment. They also practice writing a check and recording information on a check register.

Theme 3: Lesson 9 - More About Methods of Payment

This lesson, which builds on Lesson 8, may be especially appropriate for older or advanced students. It engages students in a role-playing activity designed to develop their understanding of various methods of payment. It also calls on students to decide when each method could or should be used to make payments.

Theme 3: Lesson 10 - Why Do I Want All This Stuff?

The students learn about types of advertising appeals, such as bandwagon, celebrity endorsement, and authority endorsement. They analyze ads to identify target audiences, the types of appeal used, and the facts and opinions included in the ads. They create a display to illustrate types of ads.

Theme 3: Lesson 11 - This One or That One?

The students learn about comparison shopping, considering prices and other factors that shoppers might use in making comparisons.

Theme 4: Lesson 12 - Credit Is Based on Trust

The students solve a puzzle to learn about trustworthiness. They participate in a readers' theater activity and analyze the connection between trust and creditworthiness.

Theme 4: Lesson 13 - Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime?

The students decide how they would respond to various lending situations. In assessing these situations, they learn about what to consider in decisions about lending and borrowing. They analyze, from a lender's point of view, what qualities or capacity a borrower must present to qualify for receiving a loan. These are qualities they may wish to develop in their own lives to improve their qualifications to borrow in the future.

Theme 4: Lesson 14 - Managing Money

The students examine cases in which income is limited and people must therefore make choices about how to manage their money.

Theme 4: Lesson 15 - It's a Balancing Act

The students use manipulatives to learn about income, expenses (fixed and variable), and budgeting.