Lesson 1: Introduction to Stash 101 & Read-Aloud

Learning Objective:

Students will be able to define financial literacy and understand how Stash101  will function in the classroom.

Jump$tart Standard: Saving:

4-3a. Discuss how life circumstances and experiences can cause people to differ in their values and attitudes about saving and their ability to save.

8-2d. Discuss how savings decisions can affect financial wellbeing.

SEL Competency: Responsible decision-making

Pre-work: Download the Stash101 Read-Aloud pdf (Spanish version here)

Define Financial Literacy (5 min)

Ask: What do you already know about financial literacy? If you have never heard of financial literacy, what do you think it means? (Give think time. Pair with a partner. Share out. ~ Think. Pair. Share.)

Financial—money, savings 

Literacy—reading, understanding, knowledge

Say: Financial literacy is the ability to understand, manage, and invest money. Today we are going to read a story about a boy named Jacob and his friend Marelyn, who will embark on a journey through this new program we are going to be using in the classroom, called Stash101.

Teacher and Student Exploration (5 min)

Say: Here is Stash101.com. You will all go in and create your accounts today, but first I want to show you the site and how it works. 

Log in and show students key features.

Economy > Jobs. Each student will apply for a job. You will do your job on a daily basis—or whenever it is required—and get automatically paid for it.

Economy > Action Items. You will be able to add action items. These are deposits or withdrawals that you add to your account on a daily basis. (Don’t take a lot of time explaining what these things mean; students will experience them and pick up on the language.) You will be able to apply positive action items—deposits—if you follow school norms, show up on time, etc. You will have to apply negative action items—withdrawals—if you do not follow school norms or are disrespectful, get sent to the office, etc.

Students > News Log. You will be able to see what has been deposited or withdrawn from all student accounts each day to keep each other honest.

Students > Leaderboard. Here you will see who has the most “net worth”—in other words, who has the most money in their bank accounts. It gets pretty competitive!

Optional**

Economy > Bills. You will be assigned bills to pay each month, such as rent and the water bill. If you would like to purchase your desk, you can save up your money and pay a one-time fee to “buy” it. Then you will no longer have to pay rent each month.

Economy > Assets. You can purchase your desk, an item that has value—in other words, an asset—and watch your money grow, or you can pay rent each month.

Ask: Any questions so far?

Say: Go to www.Stash101.com and click on “Create your free account.” Then click on “I’m a Student.” A page will appear where you will add the class’s sign-up PIN, create a username, enter your first name, and create a password. 

Here is the PIN to add yourself to my class: ######### 

(*Note: Look for the student sign up PIN number under the purple settings button on your homepage.) 

Make sure your password is easy enough for you to remember, but difficult enough that someone cannot just watch you type 12345. Write down your password somewhere safe.  I recommend putting your password in your planner under your birthday. Then click create. Take a few minutes and look around the site. Do NOT apply anything yet—just explore.

Now take a moment to click on the avatar and change it to something you like. You may upload a photo** as well, but it needs to be school appropriate. 

**Alternately, you can tell students they cannot upload a photo—but at an upcoming auction, they’ll be able to purchase the rights to upload a photo.

Now, navigate to certain pages so you can get familiar with the site:

• On the student home page, find these things: net worth, assets, liabilities, bank transfer, bills, and transaction history
• Jobs > Job board (where you’ll apply for jobs in the near future)
• Under “My group,” Leaderboard
• News Log (this is where everyone can make sure everyone else is being honest with their deposits and withdrawals)