Grade Levels: 3-5, 6-8, 9-12

*Click to open and customize your own copy of the Budgets Lesson Plan

This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP topic Budgets, and supports the standard of constructing and using a personal budget. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of projects.

Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Ask students: What is something you’ve tried to save up for?  How did you do it? 

Step 2: BUILD KNOWLEDGE

  • Read the description on the Budgets topic page.
  • Play the Movie, pausing to check for understanding. 
  • Assign Related Reading. Have students read one of the three articles. Partner them with someone who read a different article to share what they learned with each other.

Step 3: APPLY and ASSESS 

Assign the Budgets Challenge and Quiz, prompting students to apply essential literacy skills while demonstrating what they learned about this topic.

Step 4: EXTEND and DEEPEN

Students express what they learned about budgets while practicing essential literacy skills with one or more of the following activities. Differentiate by assigning ones that meet individual student needs.

  • Make-a-Movie: Create a tutorial explaining how to create a monthly budget.
  • Make-a-Map: Make a concept map identifying income, expenses, and savings to outline a budget for one month. 
  • Creative Coding: Code a conversation between two friends making a budget for a party they are planning. 
  • Primary Source activity: Deepen understanding of budgeting by analyzing one family’s spending record.  

More to Explore

Money Magic: Help ambitious magician Enzo manage his budget, reach his savings goal, and take his show to Vegas!

The Fiscal Ship: You’re the captain of our Fiscal Ship! Can you steer the federal budget towards smooth sailing, or will you head into stormy waters?

Related BrainPOP Topics: Deepen understanding of personal finance with these topics: Debt, Comparing Prices, and Credit Cards.

Teacher Support Resources:

Lesson Plan Common Core State Standards Alignments