finance Archives

We’ve been loving our lapbooks recently and I thought I’d share one that is seriously terrific for teaching money management to middle schoolers. It’s called “Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees” and it. is. fantastic.

Kids usually love to learn about money, at least how to count it and pretend to spend it. But they’re often a little less than enthused about learning how finances work and why financial responsibility is important. After all, in their minds, the whole point of growing up is being able to spend money the way you want, right? 🙂

So, I was thrilled to try out this lapbook, because it’s focused on helping middle schoolers understand what it takes to earn and save money, not just blow it on things you want. Read on to see how we’re using this lapbook to teach money management skills to our tween!

Disclosure: I received this product in exchange for this post. All opinions are my own and I was not required to post a positive review.

Teaching Money Management with a Lapbook

This is a tremendous unit from Knowledge Box Central. The file has 130 pages in it. So be prepared to spend some serious time putting the lapbook together.

Here’s the list of supplies you’ll need:

Colored file folders
Hot glue gun with glue sticks (for gluing the folders together)
Colored paper
Stapler with staples
Metal brad fasteners
Tacky glue (for gluing the minibooks into the folders)

Most of the lapbooks we’ve made so far use two folders, but this one uses three. And, boy, is it packed.

See what I mean? 🙂

Here’s a look at the first folder.

And the second…

And the third.

By the time kids get into the middle grades, it’s time for their learning to take a more independent route. And this lapbook does just that. There are sections in the study guide that are written directly to the student, which I loved.

On those sections, I just handed the laptop over to my daughter and had her read aloud. She really liked the content, also. Some of the things that were included in the guide were feelings about finances that she could relate to personally, such as “Why don’t my parents always buy the things I want?” I couldn’t stop nodding at the reasons why….lol.

Since this lapbook was so extensive, I had her help me assemble some of the smaller books. The Money Terms minibook in the first folder includes definitions for each term, so she matched them up and glued them in. All of the matching definitions are in the study guide as well.

She did a pretty good job of choosing the correct ones on her own, but there were a few she was unfamiliar with. On those, she checked the guide and then went forward.

We did the same thing with the banking words section in Folder 2. There are several minibooks with matching definitions there also. So it was up to her to find the right definition and glue it in the minibook.

Like so. Again, the answers are in the Guide.

Naturally, kids want to do the stuff that looks grown-up, such as writing checks. The checkbook activity in the lapbook is really comprehensive. It has a check register, practice checks, and deposit slips.

Which meant we had to do an exercise on how to balance a checkbook.

Then it was time to pay bills. *cue horror music*

Look at that! Isn’t that neat? It’s a sample electric bill and we discussed how to read the statement: why account numbers are important, where to find the due date, and how to write out the check to the correct company name.

Then she wrote her very first check!

I realize, of course, that we don’t really use checks that much anymore, so we will eventually talk about online bill payment. But this was a great introduction to the world of bill paying, AKA, being an adult. And there’s a practice debit card in the lapbook too. 😉

Another activity in the lapbook teaches kids the basics of inflation by comparing current prices of basic goods to the prices of those same goods 50 years ago. We researched the price of gas, milk, and housing in 1966 to compare.

Then we started filling the figures in to note the difference.

32 cents for a gallon of gas???!!!! Sign me up for that!

This was really, very fun to do as a unit and my tween, who typically hates math, loved it. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that we were basically doing a math lesson. 🙂

Learn more about the awesome lapbooks available from Knowledge Box Central! And get a closer look at the Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees lapbook on the company website!