Testing the Foundation: A Successful Trial Teaching Personal Finance to Kids

My work as a financial guide is primarily geared toward adults, but I believe it is vital to teach children about money so they don't have to play "catch up" when they grow up. In December and January, I led a three-lesson program at Galileo Studio for children aged 7-10 years to test the curriculum's design and my own enjoyment in teaching a younger audience.

My objective was to create a fun, relatable, and useful learning experience - one that avoided being 'just games' or feeling scary and overwhelming.

The Curriculum: From Dreams to Decisions

I structured the three sessions to move from personal values to the practical reality of making choices.

Lesson 1: Money as a Tool for Dreams

We started with a "Dream Big" activity. I asked the children to map out what they wanted for themselves, their families, and their communities. This established the "why" behind money.

We then introduced the three big jobs of money: Spend, Save, and Give, framing money as a tool to help achieve the dreams they had visualized.

Lesson 2: The Birthday Party Challenge

In the second lesson, we introduced the concept of a budget, which works as a map to achieve our goals.

This session introduced the difference between Fixed Expenses and Variable Expenses . We also discussed the difference between "must-haves" (needs) and "nice-to-haves" (wants). We practiced those concepts using examples of a school field trip and a birthday party.

Then it was time to put the knowledge to practie. The students embarked on a challenge to create their own birthday party plan: decide how many people to invite, calculate all the fixed and variable expenses, decide on must-haves and nice-to-haves, and fit the budget. The real learning happened when  I lowered the budget mid-exercise. They had to negotiate and decide which "nice-to-haves" to cut to stay within their new means while still covering their fixed costs.

Lesson 3: The Value Game

The final lesson focused on the difference between price (what you pay) and value (what something is worth to you). After the initial discussion of our life experiences, we explored this further through three types of auctions:

• English Auction: The traditional style, bidding prices up. This is the one most people are familiar with.

• Dutch Auction: A fast-paced "countdown" where the first person to call "Mine!" wins as the price drops.

• Silent Auction: Private bids revealed how differently we all value the same items. We also played a “second largest bid” variation of a silent auction, when the lot does not go to the largest bid, but the second largest, which makes the bid decision even harder, as going with the maximum possible price doesn’t work anymore. It required real self-reflection on how valuable the auction item really was to feel good about any auction outcome.

My Experience and Mission

Creating this curriculum was an interesting challenge. It forced me to look at foundational financial truths through a lens that would resonate with children. I found that I truly enjoyed the process of designing these lessons and seeing how the children engaged with them.

My mission is to help people build financial clarity and confidence. This experience not only confirmed that kids are ready for these conversations but also showed me the rewarding depth of engagement that happens when financial concepts are framed around scenarios they care about. By teaching them to see money as a series of intentional choices now, we help them build a foundational pathway for their financial future.

This mini series is over for now, but I will be exploring ways to continue engaging with the younger audience! I also hope that the students will bring their learnings and thoughts to their families and will continue having meaningful conversations at home.