Key Concepts
- The different elements of a budget, including income, expenditure, surpluses and deficits.
- The difference between a need and a want.
- Managing their money in Banqer to ensure their actual income and expenditure each week results in a surplus.
- The idea of savings goals and tracking progress towards these.
How It Works
1. Initial Quiz
Students will start with the Budgeting quiz, earning rewards for correct answers.
2. Weekly budget
- Each week students will be asked to complete and lock in their budget for the following week, including their income and expenses.
- Each week following, the platform evaluates their budget's accuracy and generates a graph comparing their budgeted surplus vs. actual surplus for the past month.
3. Savings Goal
Students can set a Savings Goal to help them keep on track and see if they are saving enough each week.
- Students can declare savings goals and track progress against them, reinforcing the importance of setting financial objectives.
4. Budgeting Streak
- Students can earn a budgeting streak if they lock in an accurate budget two weeks in a row.
- Budgeting isn't often exact, so to earn a streak your students budgeted surplus can be below or above the actual surplus by 10%.
5. Budget History
- Students can review a history of their budgets and their accuracy, helping them identify trends and improvement areas over time.
6. Rewards and Achievements
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Weekly Gems:
- Students earn 20 gems each week when they lock in their budget.
- However, if students choose to review their budget, they will forfeit the 20 gems but gain insights to improve future accuracy.
- The platform offers students the opportunity to review their budgets, giving them advice on how to improve their budget.
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Budgeting Achievement:
- Students unlock the Budgeting Achievement by creating a budget accurate within a 10% margin (positive or negative) of their actual surplus.
Teacher Tools
Weekly Budget Overview: Within the Budgeting Expansion area you can view an overview of your class and their budgets. Scroll down to view the table, showing your class list, the status of their budget update, and how accurate it was.
Class Savings Goals: In the same area you can view how many of your students have a saving goal set, and the value of that savings goal.
See the guide at the bottom of this article for a quick visual step-through of the above tools.
Lesson Support
To help guide your class through this expansion, a comprehensive Lesson Plan is available, including:
- Step-by-step instructions.
- Linked worksheets for in-class activities.
- Vocabulary builders to introduce key financial terms.
- Discussion ideas to promote classroom engagement and critical thinking.
- For information on how to enable expansions and access these resources, please see the related article here.