Economic Education
It’s Your Paycheck Curriculum Unit
full curriculum (pdf, 4.92 MB)
It’s Your Paycheck! is designed for use in high school personal finance classes. The curriculum contains three sections-”Know Your Dough,” “KaChing!” and “All About Credit.” The lessons in each of these sections employ various teaching strategies to engage students so that they have opportunities to apply the concepts being taught. Each lesson includes black-line masters of the handouts and visuals needed to teach the lesson.
All of the lessons are correlated with the National Personal Finance Standards and the National Standards in Economics. See the Lesson Correlation section (PDF, 62 KB) for more information.
Each lesson is accompanied by a SMART Notebook file that contains visuals and handouts (whenever practical), along with definitions of terms and review questions.
Unit A: Know Your Dough
Lesson 1: Invest in Yourself (PDF, 62 KB)
Whiteboard (.notebook, 12 KB)
Whiteboard (.pptx, 606 KB)
Students are divided into groups to produce name tents. Each of four groups in the classroom produce name tents in a different way to highlight different levels of human capital. The students identify ways in which people invest in human capital and the link between investment in human capital and earning income.
Lesson 2: “W” Is for Wages, W4 and W2 (PDF, 443 KB)
Whiteboard (.notebook, 16 KB)
Whiteboard (.pptx, 1.3 MB)
Students compute the gross pay for a fictional John Dough given his hourly wage and the number of hours worked. They compare gross pay to net pay. They learn what FICA and federal income taxes are. They learn how to complete a W-4 form and what a W-2 form is.
Unit B: KaChing!
Lesson 3: Cash the Check and Track the Dough (PDF, 163 KB)
Whiteboard (.notebook, 176 KB)
Whiteboard (.pptx, 1.2 MB)
Students participate in an activity to learn about checking accounts, savings accounts and check-cashing services. Students learn the components of a check, and they organize and enter information into an account register for a fictitious person in order to determine the person’s balance. Students learn why maintaining account records is important. Students balance a monthly account statement.
Lesson 4: Your Budget Plan (PDF, 152 KB)
Whiteboard (.notebook, 8 KB)
Whiteboard (.pptx, 599 KB)
Students work in pairs to participate in a “Track Star” game that illustrates positive and negative spending behaviors. Each pair of students analyzes the “Track Star” results, identifies effective and ineffective budgeting behaviors, and generates a list of budgeting principles.
Lesson 5: Savvy Savers (PDF, 82 KB)
Whiteboard (.notebook, 44 KB)
Whiteboard (.pptx, 667 KB)
Students calculate compound interest to identify benefits of saving in interest-bearing accounts. They learn the “rule of 72″ and apply it to both investments and debt. They learn that there is a relationship between the level of risk for an investment and the potential reward or return on that investment.
Unit C: All about Credit
Lesson 6: Credit Reports—and You Thought Your Report Card Was Important (PDF, 127 KB)
Whiteboard (.notebook, 12 KB)
Whiteboard (.pptx, 775 KB)
Students complete an activity sheet and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using credit. Students read a scenario about a young person’s use of a credit card and answer some questions regarding repayment. Students learn about credit history, credit reports and credit-reporting agencies.
Lesson 7: Creditors’ Criteria and Borrowers’ Rights and Responsibilities (PDF, 88 KB)
Whiteboard (.notebook, 16 KB)
Whiteboard (.pptx, 629 KB)
Students discuss key terms related to credit and learn how creditors use capacity, character and collateral as criteria for making loans. Students learn about credit rights and responsibilities. Groups use role-play scenarios in order to identify and discuss the rights and responsibilities of using credit.
Lesson 8: So How Much Are You Really Paying for that Loan? (PDF, 73 KB)
Whiteboard (.notebook, 12 KB)
Whiteboard (.pptx, 614 KB)
Students learn what a payday loan is and the high cost involved in using such a loan. Working in groups, students calculate an annual percentage rate (APR) on a short-term loan.
Lesson 9: To Rent-to-Own or Not to Rent-to-Own? (PDF, 94 KB)
Whiteboard (.notebook, 16 KB)
Whiteboard (.pptx, 89 KB)
Students review the elements of a contract. They discuss the characteristics of rent-to-own contracts and compare the cost of those contracts with the outright purchase of goods.
Other Files
Introduction (PDF, 4.1 MB)
Glossary (PDF, 45 KB)
Standards correlation (PDF, 62 KB)
Tags: 6-8, 9-12, Annual Percentage Rate (APR), Budget, Capacity, Character, Check-Cashing Services, Checking Account, Civics/Government, Collateral, Compound Interest, Contract, Credit, Credit Card, Credit History, Credit Report, Credit Rights, Creditor, Economics, English, Expenses, Gross pay, Human Capital, Income, Income Tax, Interest, Interest Rate, Investment in Human Capital, Lessons, Loan, Mathematics, Net Pay, Online, Payday Loan, Personal Finance, PowerPoint, Principal, Rent-to-Own Contract, Rule of 72, Savings Account, SMART, Taxes, W-2 Form/Wage and Tax Statement, W-4 Form/Employee's Withholding Allowance Certificate, Wages
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