Financial Literacy

I was manager of a numeracy volunteering project called Number Partners for many years. Business volunteers play maths games with kids in school. As part of this project I designed and developed a set of large format board games (the size and scope of Monopoly). They take an hour or so to play, so we put in rules for how to stop half way and pick it up later (so they could be used in lesson times). People have bought them for their families and say they are great games just to play for fun. However, the idea in each case is to put the players in a scenario in which they make financial decisions with pressures like they would really experience. It can get pretty intense when your aims are messed up by an unexpected payment or a bit of bad luck. We’ve really found this works so differently from the usual run of standard teaching activities that are normally used. Web Wheeler Dealer is the most intense, you buy and sell stuff on the web and try to collect sets of weird bits and bobs, ‘cos you know the set is always worth more than the sum of its parts. You win if you sell one big valuable set, but how much you actually get is a bit of lottery, so the spinner is your friend or your devil! Check them out. Play them at home or in school. We even did teachers notes with extra activities. Just ask for them. To Your Credit is the latest one … manage your finance from college to job and achieve your life goals.

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