11th Grade Budgeting Your Way To The Top Lesson Plan Example (Business)

Topic: Investing

Objectives & Outcomes

• To understand the basics of investing and the different types of investment strategies
• To be able to create a personal investment plan
• To be able to identify and research investments
• To be able to manage investments and monitor their performance

Materials

• Computer with internet access
• Access to financial information (such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc.)

Warm-up

• Ask the students if they have ever heard of investing before. What associations do they have with the concept of investing?
• Ask the students what they know about investments. What are some common types of investments?
• Ask the students if they have ever invested before. How did they choose their investments?

Direct Instruction

• Introduce the concept of investing and explain how it works. Explain that investing involves putting money into an asset with the hope of earning a profit in the future.
• Introduce the game Cashy and explain how it works. Explain how players must manage their money wisely in order to climb to the top of the investment ladder.
• Ask the students to play a few rounds of the game and observe their gameplay. Make notes on their decisions and how they are affecting their bottom line.

Guided Practice:

• After playing a few rounds of the game, bring the students back together and ask them to explain their thought process behind their decisions.
• Introduce the concept of risk-taking and explain how it applies to investing. Ask the students to discuss some of the riskier moves they made during the game and why they made them.
• Lead a class discussion on the different money management strategies the students used during the game. How did their decisions affect their bottom line? What could they have done differently?
• Bring the discussion back to the concept of risk-taking and how it applies to investing. Ask the students to think of a riskier move they could have taken during the game that could have paid off big time.

Independent Practice:

• Have the students complete a project-based learning activity where they must create a real-life budgeting plan for a hypothetical business venture. The students should think about all aspects of starting and running a business, including startup costs, operating expenses, and financial projections.
• To complete the activity, the students should use a software tool like Mint to track their actual finances and project their future finances.

Closure

• As a class, review the key takeaways from the lesson, including the importance of creating and sticking to a budget, the difference between saving and investing, and the concept of compound interest.
• Have each student share their budgeting plan for their hypothetical business and the reasons behind their financial projections.

Assessment

• Evaluate each student's budgeting plan based on the completeness and thoroughness of the plan, as well as the accuracy of the financial projections.
• Use this evaluation to inform their grade and provide feedback on their understanding of the material.