Aaron Chang - Mastering Money 4 Kids

Building Money Masters: Teaching Kids How to Budget Through Play

Financial literacy is rarely taught early, even though money decisions start young. To address this gap, I designed and led Money Masters Session One, an interactive lesson that introduces kids to what money is, how budgeting works, and why saving matters. The goal was not to lecture, but to make abstract ideas concrete through games, decision making, and reflection.

This post documents what I built, how I structured it, and what students learned.

Project Overview

Program: Money Masters

Session: One

Audience: Elementary and middle school students

Core Topics:

What money is
How kids can earn money
Needs vs. wants
Budgeting and saving

Instead of worksheets alone, I designed activities where students had to make choices, face constraints, and adjust when surprises happened. The session combined discussion, movement, teamwork, and problem solving.

Lesson Design and Structure

I structured the session around four learning goals:

Understand money as a tool for fair trade and future planning
Identify realistic ways kids can earn money safely
Distinguish needs from wants
Apply budgeting skills in a real scenario

Each goal built on the last, so students moved from understanding concepts to applying them.

Activity One: Needs vs. Wants Sorting Game

Students worked in teams to sort picture cards into two categories: needs and wants. Items included food, school supplies, toys, video games, and treats.

Rather than giving answers immediately, I prompted students to justify their choices by asking:
Do we need this to live or learn?
Is this something that is nice to have but not necessary?

This activity showed how subjective some decisions can be and opened discussion about priorities.

Teaching Budgeting Through a Birthday Party

To introduce budgeting, I created a hands-on scenario where students planned a birthday party with a $300 limit.

They had to allocate money across:

Food
Decorations
Games or entertainment
Gifts

Savings

Students quickly realized that money disappears faster than expected. This naturally led to conversations about tradeoffs and planning ahead.

The Curveball Challenge: Teaching Why Saving Matters

After students finalized their budgets, I introduced a surprise expense. Examples included:

A cake falling and needing replacement
Rain requiring a tent rental

Teams that saved money could adjust easily. Teams that spent everything had to cut items or rethink priorities. This moment made saving feel practical instead of abstract.

Outcomes and Skills Developed

Through this session, students practiced:
Decision making under constraints
Basic financial planning
Adjusting plans when conditions change
Explaining and defending choices

More importantly, they learned that budgeting is not about restriction. It is about control, flexibility, and preparation.

Reflection

This project reflects how I approach teaching and program design. I focus on:

Turning theory into action
Letting students learn by doing
Using familiar scenarios to explain complex ideas

Money Masters Session One serves as both an educational lesson and a demonstration of my ability to design engaging, age-appropriate curriculum around real world skills.

Money Masters Session Two

Teaching Banks, Cards, and Money Safety Through Simulation

After introducing budgeting in Session One, I designed Money Masters Session Two to help students understand how money functions inside real systems. This session focused on banks, debit and credit cards, interest, and money safety. These are concepts adults use daily, but are rarely explained clearly to kids.

Rather than explaining everything abstractly, I structured the lesson around roleplay, simulations, and decision making, so students could experience how money grows, disappears, or becomes risky depending on how it is used.

Project Overview

Program: Money Masters

Session: Two

Audience: Elementary and middle school students

Core Topics:

Banks and bank accounts
Checking vs. savings accounts
Debit cards vs. credit cards
Interest
Money and information safety

This session built directly on budgeting skills by showing students where money is stored, how it moves, and how it can be protected or lost.

Teaching How Banks Work

I began by introducing banks as safe places that store money. Students learned that when money is placed in a bank, it is kept in an account.

We focused on two main account types:

Checking accounts, used for spending money on everyday items
Savings accounts, used for keeping money so it can grow over time

Students learned that banks do more than hold money. When money is saved, banks pay interest as a reward for waiting. This helped students connect saving to long-term growth rather than short-term spending.

Debit Cards vs. Credit Cards

To explain cards, I framed them around ownership of money.

A debit card uses money that already belongs to you. When you spend it, the money leaves immediately.
A credit card borrows money from the bank, which must be paid back later. If it is not paid back on time, extra money is owed through interest.

I reinforced this with short pause-and-think questions, asking students whose money was being used in each scenario. This helped clarify the difference between spending and borrowing.

Making Interest Visible With a Simulation

Interest can feel invisible, so I designed a hands-on simulation using M&M’s or tokens as money.

Students could choose to:

Save, which caused their pile to grow each round
Borrow, which gave them more immediately but required paying back extra later

Over multiple rounds, savers watched their money increase while borrowers struggled to repay more than they borrowed. This activity showed how interest can either work for you or against you depending on your choices.

Teaching Money Safety

The final concept focused on protecting money and personal information.

Students learned simple, practical rules:

Never share passwords or PINs
Avoid clicking strange links or messages
Tell an adult immediately if a card is lost

To reinforce this, I created a password-strength challenge where students designed strong passwords using symbols, numbers, and mixed letters. This turned digital safety into an interactive and memorable activity.

Roleplay and Applied Learning

To tie everything together, students participated in a bank roleplay:

Some acted as bank tellers
Others acted as customers

Scenarios included opening accounts, reporting lost cards, and making deposits. This activity helped students practice real-world interactions and understand how systems respond to problems.

Outcomes and Skills Developed

Through this session, students practiced:

Understanding financial systems
Distinguishing spending from borrowing
Evaluating long-term consequences
Protecting sensitive information
Adapting decisions over time

The activities transformed abstract financial terms into concrete experiences.

Reflection

This session reflects my approach to curriculum design. I focus on:

Breaking down adult systems into understandable pieces
Using simulations instead of lectures
Teaching risk, responsibility, and foresight early

Money Masters Session Two demonstrates my ability to design engaging, age-appropriate lessons that connect financial concepts to real-world behavior and decision making.

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