How to Be Responsible Money Managers? Pre-K SEL Lesson

Jingling and rustling sounds are coming from the pre-kindergartners’ fourth special gift. What could it be? Yes, it is the gift of ‘money!’ The students are excited to learn about their gift and how to manage it.

An educational puppet show featuring Squeak and Mimi, the hedgehogs, opens the lesson. In the show, Squeak and Mimi are worried because their money is missing. The goal of this show is to keep the students engaged in the lesson and retain their attention throughout, while showing the possible feeling of losing money.

What is money? Why do the students need to learn how to manage and take care of their money? These are some of the questions that are answered in this lesson. These help the students learn how to use their money—save it or spend it! Both are positive actions if done properly.

To better immerse the students in the lesson, the teacher invites them to play an SEL game about using money wisely. Here, the students are given the choice to either save or spend. These two choices have different outcomes that illustrate the point of the lesson.

The students have fun, and they learn that managing their money wisely makes them feel good about themselves! They want to exercise self-management in saving and spending; then they mark their Positive Behavior Chart.

There are three advantages to teaching money management as early as pre-kindergarten: further development of smart decision-making, improvement of self-control, and building positive financial habits. Pre-kindergartners further develop their decision-making skill as they weigh the options of spending or saving and also consider whether purchases are good for their bodies or overall wise. Once a decision is made, they improve their self-control by committing to their decisions. This system of decision-making and self-control is overall a positive financial habit that sets pre-kindergartners up for financial success later in life.