Teacher Lesson Plans
Literacy Level
Unit 2: Planning for the Future
LESSON ONE: Goals and Budgets
for Literacy Level Students
Lesson
1 Objectives
- Identify goals, including personal, family, education and material.
- Identify income and expenses and create a budget.
- Identify ways to make adjustments to income after expenses in order
to achieve goals (for sample student and self).
- Language and/or EFF skills practiced: plan; use math to solve problems
and communicate; solve problems and make decisions.
Lesson
1 Materials
Lesson
1 Activities
Print All Lesson Materials
Activity 1-1: Goals in Writing = Budget
- To warm-up to the topic of goals and budgets, ask students to take
another look at their "dream cloud" goals from the needs assessment
activity. If some students were absent for the needs assessment, ask them
what they want to do/buy in the future. Ask students how they think they
will be able to save the money needed for the things they want to buy or
do. Ask questions like:
·
Do you have extra money from your paycheck
after paying all your bills?
·
What do you do with extra money?
·
If you don't have any money left, is there
anything you can change to have some money?
·
What can you do to save money for the future,
and not spend it? (answers may include, put it in the bank, etc.)
·
Do you write down how much you spend?
·
Do you know what a budget is?
- Following the instructions for Picture
Story Best Practices, generate a story and complete related picture
story activities. You can use the printed story below for telling
the story to students and other reading/writing activities, and/or for understanding
the story sequence.
The New Restaurant.
Chen and Soo are friends.
They work at a restaurant. They are busboys. They dream about opening a
restaurant. It is their goal.
Chen plans his budget.
He saves $300 a month. He watches television. He goes to the park and plays
games at home with his family. They have fun. After three years, he has
$10,800. He opens a restaurant.
Soo plans his budget. He spends all his money. He buys a big screen television.
He travels to Disneyland and goes to the movie theater with his family.
They have fun. He does not save money.
After three years, Soo is a busboy. He works at Chen's new restaurant.
- In this activity, students will build a word bank of items that make
up a monthly budget. They will become familiar with Soo's income and expenses.
To warm up to the topic of making budgets, show the picture from Overhead
1-A, the New Restaurant Picture Story, of Soo sitting down to make his budget.
Show again, through the amounts shown in the piggy bank, that Soo does not
save any money.
- Become familiar with the vocabulary words to be presented in this
lesson from Worksheet 1-3, the matching activity. Have these vocabulary
words handy so that you can "lead" students to these words as
you do the following brainstorm.
- Make a chart on the board with two columns. Title the first column
"Get $ (Income)" and the second "Spend $ (Expenses)".
Ask students to tell you "Where do you get your money?" and begin
to fill in the first column with terms like "job"; "social
security", etc.
- Then ask, "And where/how do you spend that money each month?"
and begin to fill in the second column. Print out the pictures from Part
2 of Visuals 1-3. These represent each budget item. Tape each picture into
your second column. Hopefully most of the items will come up, but if they
do not, show the additional pictures and use related vocabulary word(s)
(in Part 1 of Visuals 1-3 you can see what word(s) relate to each visual).
At this point, so that students don't get bogged down with writing all the
words, tell them to just listen and discuss at this point. Tell them you'll
work on the written words next.
- To reinforce vocabulary, go through each of the pictures on the board,
one by one, and ask students what each picture represents. Again, lead them
to the vocabulary words that they will work with in this activity. Ask if
anyone can write the words on the board, or simply write the word on the
board yourself. (Again, no need to copy at this point, students will have
the words in their next activity.)
- Go through each word, one by one, and have students listen and repeat
the words. Try to do only a couple at a time then review, before moving
on to the next several words.
Step 2 - Explain how to account
for bills paid yearly, monthly or weekly
- To get across the concept that
some bills are paid monthly while others are paid yearly or occasionally,
get out a calendar, and then point to items on your expenses list like,
rent, and ask "When do you pay rent?" Answers may vary but emphasize
the point that it is usually paid every month - and show this using your
calendar. Then, from your list on the board, ask students, "When do
you pay for your vacation?". Again, answers may vary, but show that,
say, in July, Soo's family took a vacation to Disneyland, and paid $600.
Step 3 - Reinforce vocabulary
and budgeting concepts through matching and dictation
- Pass out Worksheet 1-3, Monthly Budget Worksheet, and have students
work in pairs to complete the first activity, the matching exercise. Check
answers.
- Next, have students turn to
page 3 of Worksheet 1-3. From the Monthly Budget Answer Key, Overhead 1-B,
dictate the amounts for Soo and Jin's budget (don't show the overhead yet).
Amounts you will dictate properly account for yearly and weekly items. For
example, vacation expenses were divided by twelve already for this budget,
i.e. vacation=$600 year or $600/12=$50 month.
- After completing the dictation,
have students compare answers, then dictate again. If students need practice
with numbers, you may want to add an activity where they practice numbers.
Or, dictate the amounts, write them on the board and have students copy
them.
- Next, have students write in
the vocabulary words that correspond to the pictures and amounts.
- Show Overhead 1-B and have students
check their dictation amounts. Then, as a class, fill in the related vocabulary
words onto the overhead.
Step 4 - Review and extension
- Review activity by asking, for
example, "How much is Soo's electric bill?" or "What costs
$50?"
- To extend this activity, and
continue practicing amounts, students, in pairs, can ask each other "What
costs __?"
- In addition, in small groups,
students can play the concentration game. Game pieces are on the first two
pages of Visuals 1-3. Have groups cut up all the pictures and words, and
have them match the picture(s) with the correct word(s). You will need one
set of words for per group. In Visuals 1-3 words are grouped into two sets
of 9-10 words. You can break them down into smaller sets depending on each
group's literacy level.
- Remind students of the picture story and show how Chen saved money
each month and how Soo didn't. Now, tell students they can help Soo save
money and open a restaurant in the future. Have students work in groups
of three to five to come up with a list of ideas for how Soo and Jin can
save $100 a month (the last activity on Worksheet 1-3, page 5).
- As a whole group, discuss the ideas students generate.
- As an extension activity, have students complete a budget worksheet
for themselves. Tell students to write in their own amounts on Worksheet
1-3, pages 3 and 4 (with pictures) and/or make students a copy of Worksheet
1-4 which is a more detailed budget that they can do with family members
who know English. Because of the personal nature of the information, please
do not have students complete their personal worksheet in class.
Final Activity: Reflection
- Ask students to write down, or tell you as you circulate around the
room, one thing they learned in class today (it could be a new concept,
a new word, a grammar point, it doesn't matter). This is a very useful technique
to discover in what ways the lesson made an impact on individual students.
It will also give you information for reporting financial literacy gains,
so be sure to have your chart
handy as you walk around the room, or for recording notes after class.