Since 2020, financial literacy has been part of the math curriculum taught to all Rainy River District School Board students. Moreover, according to Tanya Kroocmo, Elementary STEM Coordinator for the Rainy River District School Board, students are taught about budgeting, comparison shopping, taxes, currencies, and more with textbooks and online resources. Furthermore, Kroocmo said the curriculum is engaging and valuable for students and teachers because of its pragmatic, hands-on, and real-world applications.
“So the curriculum itself, financial literacy, was introduced with the new 2020 math curriculum, and with that, teachers were given the opportunity to help students build their knowledge about the value and use of money,” said Kroocmo. “In early supplementary grades, kids learn about money basics, which includes things about Canadian coins and bills, how to calculate, change, how to add, subtract, multiply and divide money amount.”
Moreover, Kroocmo said students also learn about budgeting.
“Certainly, they also learn about budgeting, and that’s where they learn about income and expenses and how to allocate money to the things that they need or want,” said Kroocmo. “One of the popular games that we play to help kids learn about money is called ‘the bean game.’ That just helps students distinguish between their needs and wants.
“So in the game, students are each given 20 dry beans, which represents their 20 bean salary, and then they’re given a handout with different items in sort of essential categories like food, housing, transportation, and then luxury categories such as recreation, personal care, savings, gifts, etcetera. So, the game helps students understand the importance of identifying needs versus wants and how to prioritize the things that are most important to them.”
Afterwards, the curriculum moves into more complex topics like “comparison shopping.”
“After students learn about money basics and have a budget, then they start to get into more complex topics as the grades go on. So, they learn about things like comparison shopping, where they consider factors like the cost, value, sales and discounts before making a purchase,” said Kroocmo. “They also learn about taxes and currencies. This is an important one, where they understand how and why taxes are collected from the different levels of government, and how the Canadian dollar compares to other currencies around the world.”
Next, students learn about methods of payment and responsibly managing credit and savings.
“In the intermediate grades, they learn about methods of payment, like credit cards, cash, and automatic withdrawals, and the advantages and disadvantages of using each of those payment methods,” said Kroocmo. “One of the most important topics is interest, savings and credit. This is taught throughout the upper elementary grades so that students learn about interest rates and factors to consider when choosing a credit card and how to manage credit and savings responsibly.
“Some resources that teachers use to teach these concepts have different sorts of textbooks, such as Mathology in the primary grades and My Math Class in grades four to eight. So a lot of times teachers use some picture books, especially from Mathology, that help kids to explore how different characters and books are using money wisely, and then they use those resources in conjunction with digital tools like there’s one that’s called Enriched Academy and Next-Gen Personal Finance, which are really great because they have some digital games that students can play to see how the choices that they make with their money can affect the outcomes.”
According to Kroocmo, one outcome of teaching this course material is a love for financial literacy by students and teachers because of its applicability to students’ lives.
“I think both the teachers and the students love the units when it comes to financial literacy, just because it is so easy to make real-world connections. The kids see it as valuable, especially when they get to do things like actually look at flyers that apply to, you know, places around Fort Frances or Emo or Atikokan, wherever they’re based because they can actually do some comparison shopping, some real-world comparison shopping and budgeting,” said Kroocmo. “Teachers find it easy to teach because students are engaged.”
