Teaching Tool Tuesday - Mad About Money Week 4 Curriculum / Lapbook Template

Don’t tell, but my wish lists at Lakeshore Learning and Amazon are much longer than the one I have at Endless.com. Honestly, I’m a complete sucker for books and educational games, software and toys. But this past year I’ve honed my ability to discern which tools will be fun once or twice and which ones we'll use over and over . . . and I’ll be sharing our favorites with you every Tuesday. 

Okay, I finally uploaded the Week 4 curriculum and lapbook template for our Mad About Money unit (combined with Weeks 1-3). Sorry to not have pics (I'm too lazy to go take them, but I'll get them up ASAP), but Week 4 focused on Banking Basics. This week's lesson was largely lapbook-based, beginning with a flap book on basic banking terms. Next, the All About Interest minibook walks students through calculating interest earned and payed (at wildly unrealistic rates!) Another minibook diagrams parts of a check and walks the students through filling out their own check. 

Finally, in a really fun shopping activity, the kids each deposited $20 in the Bank of Homeschool, then used their own tiny checkbooks to purchase "items" at four different stores. All the printables for setting up this activity are included in the curriculum for Week 4.

Teaching Tool Tuesday - Mad About Money Week 3 Curriculum / Lapbook Now Available

Don’t tell, but my wish lists at Lakeshore Learning and Amazon are much longer than the one I have at Endless.com. Honestly, I’m a complete sucker for books and educational games, software and toys. But this past year I’ve honed my ability to discern which tools will be fun once or twice and which ones we'll use over and over . . . and I’ll be sharing our favorites with you every Tuesday. 

I finally had time to upload the Mad About Money Week 3 curriculum and lapbook elements to the blog. As always, you can find them under Curriculum to Share on the right navigation bar. I'm really pleased with how this unit is turning out, and Week 3 wraps up the portion devoted to the history of money. The curriculum covers the history of paper money in our country, as well as the types and quantities of bills produced in the U.S. today. It also covers how bills are made, which brought back nice memories of our trip to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing last year.

For the lapbook, we have a fan book of all the different bills printed in the U.S. today, with space to write in the quantity printed per year and the name of the person whose portrait appears on it. Other elements include an inflation chart that compares the costs of three items in three different years, a "Decoding the Dollar" activity to learn what appears on our dollar bills (and why) and flap book of fun facts about paper money.

As always, I'd love to hear feedback from anyone who uses the curriculum or makes the lapbook!

Teaching Tool Tuesday - Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace, Jr.

Don’t tell, but my wish lists at Lakeshore Learning and Amazon are much longer than the one I have at Endless.com. Honestly, I’m a complete sucker for books and educational games, software and toys. But this past year I’ve honed my ability to discern which tools will be fun once or twice and which ones we'll use over and over . . . and I’ll be sharing our favorites with you every Tuesday. 

We just rolled in from vacation at three o'clock this morning . . . ut;s always hard to see such a wonderful adventure end, but I'm eager to get things rolling for our now-delayed start to school. One of the nice surprises awaiting us when we returned home was our Financial Peace, Jr. kit from Dave Ramsey.

I was clearly not meant to work on the money lapbook on vacation as I'd planned (think forgotten power cords, malfunctioning software, etc.), but we're still going to be diving into our study of money very soon. So I was excited to open up the kit and see exactly what I had to work with.

The core of this package - or at least the part I was most excited about - was the Junior's Adventures boxed set. Each book focuses on a different money-related theme, including spending, saving, giving, work, debt and integrity. To put the information practice, the Teaching Kids About Money kit includes a Commission (his term for Allowance) worksheet, an audio CD, calculator and coin case, a worksheet for saving up to buy a specific item and an envelope system for dividing money for different causes (saving, spending and sharing).

Our money unit will start with the history of money, so it will be a few months before we're ready to break out the Dave Ramsey in the classroom. But from what I can tell, I already like what I see!

Planning Our Homeschool Year

No, we're not officially back to school yet. I'm protesting the end of summer and holding out for a few more weeks. But, I think I'm finally in the last stages of getting our year planned and supplies ordered.

Still trying to figure out how to incorporate the message of "relaxed homeschooling" that struck a chord with me at convention with my urge to plan each day. Overall, here's what our year will (might?) look like.

Unit Studies (most with a lapbook component)
Cars (fall) - Noah's pick
Oceans (fall) - Ava's pick
Money (year-long)
Great Inventors (spring) - Noah's pick
Animals around the World (spring)

Language Arts
Language Smarts
Kreative Komix
Write a joke book
Personal dictionary
Write to a penpal

Math
Singapore Math
IXL
Balance Benders and Math Analogies

Science
Cars, oceans and animals around the world units
Fuel cell and solar car models
Exploration Education Physical Science curriculum (Unit 1: Forces, Machines, Motion & Energy)

Geography
50 States (fall)
Where in the world are Jack & Annie? (Magic Tree House mapping activity) 

History
Magic Tree House timeline
Cars & great inventors units 

Critical Thinking
Organizing Thinking Skills (Noah)
Visual Perception Skill Building (Ava)

French
Rosetta Stone

Art
Draw Cars
Draw Ocean Animals
Sports Car Designer
Car photography project (photo book and/or blog)
OMA Art Adventure classes

Other activities
Weekly co-op (art, science, money, PE)
Swim team
Dance (Ava)
Odyssey of the Mind (Noah)
DuathLONG training club

Group Buy on Dave Ramsey Financial Curriculum

I'm still knee-deep in all things cars, but I definitely wanted to take time out to blog about the current group buy that the Homeschool Buyer's Co-op is offering on financial curriculum from Dave Ramsey. We'll be using this as the core for our year-long study on money.

When you purchase through the Homeschool Buyer's Co-op, you received great savings of up to 67% on products that help all ages learn about personal finance. The discount applies to their adult books and the elementary / high school curriculum. This group buy ends on August 16th.

We will be purchasing the elementary bundle, which includes Financial Peace, Jr. and Junior's Adventures Boxed Book Set. Here is the description from their website:

Financial Peace Jr. PLUS Junior's Adventures Boxed Set
 
Make a real difference in a child's life! For ages 3-12, this special includes age-appropriate tools for teaching kids about money. It's never too early to teach them how to make wise decisions with their money, whether it's $1 or $100. Designed for ages 3-12. Bundle includes:

• Financial Peace Jr. - Dry-erase board to track commission earnings, Dry-erase board to track savings amounts, Envelope system (3 separate envelopes), Clip-n-carry coin case, Give, Spend, and Save magnets, Cool calculator, Instruction manual, Instructional audio CD

• Junior's Adventures Boxed Set - 6 hardcover kids' books in a keepsake boxed set, each book centers around a particular life lesson - working, spending, giving, saving, integrity, and debt.

The regular price for this bundle is $79.94, but the price through the co-op is $44.95. Orders over $65 ship for free.

If you're not familiar with the Homeschool Buyer's Co-op, it's a wonderful resource for finding discounts on popular curriculum. In addition, when you buy certain items, refer new members or write field trip reviews, you can earn points to use on future purchases. For example, I'm planning to use points I earned buying our Critical Thinking Company curriculum from them (same price with free shipping) to pay for part of our IXL membership renewal.

Membership is free, so if you're interested in joining, please consider doing so through my referral link. When you join through this link, I'll get 100 SmartPoints, and you'll get 100 SmartPoints just for joining!