Teachers First - Thinking Teachers Teaching Thinkers

This short video demonstrates the risks, benefits, and realities of borrowing money. The video offers simple pictures to explain the complex topics. Despite a paid membership model, Common Craft still offers this video for free, but it does have a watermark saying, "For evaluation only." If you wish to share this with a group, they will need to view it on individual/partner computers (or iOS devices) or on a projector that has a zoom function to enlarge a selected area of the screen.
This site includes advertising.

tag(s): business (53), financial literacy (95), money (114)

This site offers a short introductory video about savings. Learn the basics of savings, compound interest, and how money continues to grow over time. Despite a paid membership model, Common Craft still offers this video for free, but it does have a watermark saying, "For evaluation only." If you wish to share this with a group, they will need to view it on individual/partner computers (or iOS devices) or on a projector that has a zoom function to enlarge a selected area of the screen.
This site includes advertising.

tag(s): financial literacy (95), money (114)

This site shows a short but powerful video that breaks down the demographic makeup of the world if it were reduced to 100 people. Besides ethnic differences, it also shows statistics for sex divisions, urban vs. rural living situations, percentage of people with disabilities, general living conditions, literacy/educational level, computer ownership/internet hookup, military presence, economic conditions, religions, and general material possessions.

The site can be viewed in English, Portuguese, Spanish, French, or German. Although the text and statistics are familiar, they have been updated for this video with its vivid closeups and haunting music. The text upon which the video is based is also online here.

tag(s): population (51), religions (112)

As part of their extensive site for vocabulary, roots, and more, MyVocabulary.com has added a themed area for the Stock Market. Find interactive vocabulary activities using Stock Market related vocabulary words. You will also find printable crosswords, fill in the blanks and more, all using the same theme words. This and other "themes" available on the site will make vocabulary development fun. Do NOT use the Chrome browser! Use the Microsoft Edge browser to avoid inappropriate pop-up ads.

tag(s): financial literacy (95), money (114), stock market (11)

This is a nice informational site for students, teachers, and parents. Learn about budgeting, saving, and investing. Use the calculators to determine interest, savings, and more. This site has polls, tips, articles of interest, and a link for teachers. Clicking the Teaching Kids link, then the Activities and Resources, you will find lesson ideas, true stories of teachers "in the trenches," and other links. There are also downloadable PDF files of teaching guides and student activities.

tag(s): financial literacy (95), money (114)

Plan your dream job, pretend to live on your own, pay bills, and decide what the "important" extras are at this site. There are links to interactives that help you learn to save, spend, and earn money! You can even plan a "dream prom" budget. Students learn about money and economics as they practice living in the "real world." There is a Teachers' Guide, although it is tricky to find. Click on the GO button and then the Info link. Here you will find a link to a Teachers' Guide and Parents' Guide. The guides provide statistics about students (and adults) knowledge of money, standards, lesson ideas, tutorials, technology tips, and links for more information. You MUST turn off any pop-up blockers to fully access this site!

tag(s): money (114)

This simple site provides a calculator to figure out how long it will take for you to pay off credit card debt. They ask a few simple questions (how much you owe, what percentage rate your card has, current monthly payments, etc). Then they present you with WHEN your debt will be paid in full and how much interest will cost you during that time.

tag(s): financial literacy (95)

This site offers lots of information on money management for students of all ages, including college students. Click on the Teach tab at the top and select your grade level to find lesson plans, curriculum ideas, classroom resources, and more. The lesson plans include a slide presentation for the lesson (also in PDF format) and student activities. Though some look gray as if they aren't accessible, they are, so just click or double click on them and they will be downloaded to your computer. Help high school students succeed financially after high school with the 22 free, standards-aligned lessons that this site has revamped for Grades 9-12, and Special Needs, College. This section includes student-centered activities, research projects, discussion points, and resources. Clicking on the Play tab will display many games at different grade levels. Especially interesting for high school and college students will be the Financial Football, reviewed here.

tag(s): financial literacy (95), money (114)

Although this site is "plain vanilla," and is for 6-8 lessons, click Teacher Resources on the top menu. We seldom see anything as useful as this one. The site contains an extensive collection of standards-correlated lesson plans for teaching principles of economics at all K-12 levels. The content is drawn from a variety of sources, and some of the presentations are in the form of printable PDF files. While a number of the lessons and resources are centered on standards in Nebraska, there are correlations to national standards, and most of the material could be used elsewhere, sometimes with minor adaptations. This is one that every social studies or economics teacher should see.

Examples of topics for the K-5 students include Shortages and Surpluses, Consumers/Consumption, Functions of Money, and countless others. Grade 6-8 topics include Role of the Government, Unemployment, Economic Growth, and many others. Some of the higher level topics for grades 9-12 include Circular Flow, Market Failures, Federal Reserve, and much more! Many of the topics include more than one lesson plan or classroom activity. A few of the topics are "under construction" as new material is constantly added.

tag(s): financial literacy (95), money (114)

This site features engaging movie scenes that involve Math problems. Beside each clip and title is an explanation of the Math concept in the clip. Most are secondary level, but a few are for lower grades. If you click on the TITLE of the movie, you will be lead to a site to purchase, rate, and/or view the movie in its entirety. To avoid this confusion, be sure to click on the link below the description.

tag(s): logic (161), movies (55), patterns (61)

We know that today's students are far more accustomed to learning through images than students of the past. This site is a collection of the work of dozens of political cartoonists and is constantly updated to provide fresh content tied to the news of the day. The site is surprisingly deep, however, and has cartoon galleries that go back at least five years.

Teachers should be aware of several cautions however: Preview the cartoons collections for age-appropriateness; understand that the site does contain advertisements; and recognize that the images are copyright protected. Teachers are advised to post links to specific cartoons rather than trying to "cut and paste" the cartoons into websites or other documents.

tag(s): comics and cartoons (55), politics (118)

This site has letters written to Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of Franklin D. Roosevelt, during the Depression. Use them to teach lessons about that difficult time to younger students. These may serve as an important discussion tool in helping students understand the very real distress suffered by many families during the Depression. Click Teacher Resources to find lesson plans for grades 3-12, PDF docuements categorized as Human Meaning of the Depression, Children Turn to the President, Government Responds to the Young, and Magpie Sings the Great Depression.

tag(s): franklin (12), great depression (30), new deal (5), roosevelt (15)

Looking for a way to teach real shopping lessons without actually going to a store? This blog post includes links to online grocery shopping from all over the U.S. Since the stores are in business to make money they will, of course, include advertisements on their sites. Teachers will want to discuss advertising links and why students should avoid them to stay on task.

Are you looking for a new way to get your students excited about current events and the news? This site provides daily (Monday - Friday) video blogs. The blogs come complete with a video clip, summary, quotes, thinking questions, and more. (Don't miss the link to "How to Use this" with tips for downloading veido in advance of your class and how to use it). Video topics relate to current events but extend back into background that lead up to today's events. Some of the "extras" include transcripts, printables, and the ability to post comments. If you post a comment, you must provide your name, city, state, and email address. BE CERTAIN to check your school's Acceptable Use Policy and obtain parental permission before allowing students to comment on the video blogs.

Tip: rather than using your personal or work email, create a free Gmail account to use for memberships. If you plan to have students register individually, you may want to create your own Gmail account with up to 20 subaccounts for each group of students (by code name or number) within your classes. Here is a blog post that tells how to set up GMail subaccounts to use for any online membership service.

tag(s): news (226)

Teens spend a lot of money. And they influence the spending of a lot more. Marketing companies know this and pitch their products mercilessly to the teen age demographic. With their high need for acceptance and affiliation, teens are also very susceptible to these marketing pitches. This site, part of the well-respected Consumer Reports site, offers commentary in several areas of interest to teens: electronics, cars, money, and shopping. There are also links to news, forums, and videos. Offered without the hype, these reviews and observations may help teens cut through the marketing to learn to make intelligent consumer decisions and learn to manage their money responsibly.

tag(s): advertising (26), business (53), safety (68)

This is an environmental site and should NOT be confused with catalogchoice.COM, a consumer site FULL of advertising. Catalog Choice(.org) provides free membership to "opt out" of catalogs. Their self-described mission is "a free service that allows you to decide what gets in your mailbox. Use it to reduce your mailbox clutter, while helping save natural resources." If you teach consumer skills, basic economics, or environmental issues, this site is a real world place to visit with your students as part of your class discussions on marketing, advertising, and environmental issues caused by junk mail.

tag(s): advertising (26), earth (183), earth day (61), environment (252)

Gapminder is an interactive site designed to present world demographic information in a highly visual way. Using either a world map, or a chart with "bubbles" sized according to each country's population, users can track 30 years of change in a wide variety of economic and social indicators (for example, population size, percentage of GNP dedicated to military spending, proportion of girls in school, infant mortality). Math teachers can use the site to demonstrate data analysis skills with meaningful data. Slides will save to your Google drive. Be sure to check out the Resources from the top menu

tag(s): data (150), demographics (13)

This is a general "go-to" website all about social studies. There is information about current events, culture, holidays, languages, religion, economics, geography, maps, government, U.S. presidents, timelines, and many other social studies topics. The highlight of this website is the Current Events segment. This is an easy way to incorporate age-appropriate current events in your classroom.
Note: an annoying audio ad plays when you first enter the site. Turn OFF your sound!

tag(s): holidays (194), maps (224), presidents (136), renaissance (38), timelines (57)

This is a wonderful compilation site of news from all over the world. Users can read the home page or search news of a specific geographic region. An excellent plus here is the ability to choose to read the news in a variety of languages. World Photos today, multimedia, global weather, and sports are just a few of the many attractive sections that add to this site's appeal.

tag(s): news (226)

Created in response to the CIA Factbook and other data sources, NationMaster draws together data from multiple sources so students (and adults) can compare and contrast using the tools of the web site itself. Use pulldowns to select a statistic to compare, such as Education, and the specific statistic you wish to look at (Average years of schooling of adults, for example). You will see the actual data as well as a bar graph or switch to a colored world map representing the data. The site makes working with data more student-friendly. You will have to ignore some of the ads along the top and left side of the page.

tag(s): data (150), statistics (121)