The second unit of the Middle School Personal Finance curriculum. Built by a working classroom teacher. American English throughout. Age-appropriate content for 11-13 year olds - no patronizing, no retirement math, just real conversations about real money in a kid’s actual life.

Students learn the difference between needs, wants, and whims (and why most spending leaks are whims they didn’t even want an hour earlier), how to calculate the true cost of purchases (a $20 phone case is actually $26.60 after tax and shipping - 33% over sticker), how the 5 main advertising techniques target kids ($5 billion/year is spent in the US on ads targeting kids alone), why peer pressure spending costs $360+/year in brand premium, the 24-hour rule against impulse buys (60-80% of impulse purchases are regretted within a week), how to comparison shop effectively (10 minutes saves $15-40 typically), why subscriptions drain budgets invisibly ($72/month in typical kid-affecting subs = $864/year), the unique traps of online shopping (algorithms, BNPL, fake reviews), when to splurge on big purchases vs skip (cost per use + lifespan framework), and synthesize everything into a personal spending plan as the capstone summative.

What’s inside:

• 10 fully-built lesson presentations (editable PPTX) with substantive teacher speaker notes on every slide
• 10 print-ready student worksheets (PDF), every part scaffolded
• 10 answer keys with sample responses and teacher conferring notes
• Unit overview / scope and sequence (PDF + editable Word)
• Parent letter (PDF + editable Word)
• Capstone summative assessment with a detailed analytic rubric (5 criteria, 4 levels, 20 points)
• Read-Me-First how-to-use guide

Every lesson follows the same arc: Title slide, Learning Target with success criteria and vocabulary, Hook with a turn-and-talk scenario, Direct Instruction, Guided Practice, Independent Practice with worksheet, Exit Ticket, and a Recap. Full speaker notes mean any teacher - or a substitute - can deliver it cold.

Standards: aligned to the Council for Economic Education (CEE) National Standards for Personal Financial Literacy and the Jump$tart Coalition National Standards (grades 6-8 benchmarks). Adaptable to state middle-school financial-literacy requirements.

Differentiation is built in: extension prompts for above-level students, scaffolded on-level structure, and sentence starters, vocabulary boxes and supports for IEP and ELL learners.

Perfect for middle-school personal finance, life-skills, CTE, FCS, economics, and advisory classes, plus homeschool families and substitute coverage. Grades 6-8.

Format: PPTX (editable) lesson decks, PDF (printable) student materials and answer keys, DOCX (editable) overview and parent letter. American English throughout.

Part of the 9-unit Middle School Personal Finance curriculum - pairs with the complete Mega Bundle.