Urbany / Strunk Meeting June 15, 2009

Folks -

Bill and I met today -we are both pumped to get the design going for our new program.

Note the goals in the e-mail below. We need to develop 6-7 lessons, lay out all the concepts and the pedagogy
we used for MS and can now build up, exercises, manipulatives, etc. We then need
a series of teaching plans that:

(1) effectively convey a basic set of financial concepts
(2) build language-based problems into the program
(3) hit specific standards and link to skill-building for the ISTEPs (particulary written problems)

Time line:
June 15 - Aug 15: develop program, reproduce materials
Aug 20 or so - begin recruiting volunteers for the program, including training and 1 hr credit
Sept 1 begin training
Oct 1 get volunteers in classrooms, first just observing, then delivering an introductory lesson
before Mod 1 exams

Oct 26 Mod 2 starts ... 6 sessions, 1/week, weekly meetings

For June, Bill has afternoons on T, Th, Fri he could work on this with us. We also could see
if we can get a 1-year MBA team involved in the design, starting in July.

Brady, any chance of having just 1 lesson drafted by this Friday for us all to discuss?

thanks and talk to you soon

Summary of April 6 Meeting

Good meeting on Monday - quick summary of my notes ...

1. wrap-up for Money Savvy at Muessel went well, Jeopardy game is a creative, fun
way to test knowledge. (thanks for sending the questions)

2. Brady / Kwabe have had some good responses in recruiting volunteers.
Need to determine how to keep in touch with them and keep them informed
about next year's work... (brilliant idea to share the kids' thank you notes)

3. Need to figure out design and updating of web site to make it an
actionable tool for volunteers.

4. For april 17 meeting - potential agenda -

(a) 45 minutes - introduction re: School, Inc. mission and "practice"
post-it exercise -- (e.g., positives and negatives of volunteering)

(b) 1 hour - two teams - La Familia and Money Savvy split out
and do separate post-it exercises, in preparation for filling out
planning templates.

(c) 1 hour - report outs on key conclusions and subsequent action steps.


5. To do's for April 17 planning:

(a) schedule a room - I've scheduled room 133 in the Executive MBA wing -
this is the first room after the lunch room - (Urbany)

(b) Draft the "planning templates" for each group -- (Kwabe, Brady)

(c) Invite participants (please start inviting now - I'll send a general note) -
Let's call it "School, Inc. 2009-10 Planning Session " (Kwabe, Brady)

(I will definitely send something to Heather and Carmen )

(d) Get whatever supplies we need - post-its, flip charts, copies of
templates (Urbany)

6. Our next meeting: Monday April 13, 5:00 p.m.

------------------------------------------------------------
April 9 update:

+Room 133 in the Exec wing is scheduled for our April 17 meeting 1-4; we should be
able to use the break out rooms across the hall, too.

+I've heard from the following folks who will plan to be at the meeting Apr 17:

LA FAMILIA TEAM: Dave, Trea, Maureen, Karen.
Heather will be in NYC and can't come; haven't heard from Carmen

MONEY SAVVY TEAM: Brady, Kwabe, John, Cait (pending interviews)
Geoff will be in Chicago with the AIM class.

+Probably need to shorten proposed agenda above; that's easy to do

Lesson 1 Redux

From Urbany re: Lesson 1

I just started up in Mrs. Haun's class today and a few observations.

1. very helpful to have been with Brady and Kwabe in their first lesson

2. 8:45 a.m. is our starting time - I like this - at least on this day, the kids were alert and focused -

3. this lesson can be streamlined into 4 basic components, following a brief introduction:
(45 minutes max)

3.1 what is money ? (3-4 minutes)
+slide 1.1: ask about Abe Lincoln and why the pig ? note the 4 slots
+slide 1.2: what do you spend money on? (just get 2-3 examples)

3.2 Barter (25-30 min)
+OK, let's pretend there is no money - i.e., money has not yet been invented. You need pencils for school. I am the pencil merchant. I need 3 volunteers. (have them come up and stand in line ... talk to each of them one at a time) - what would you give me for these 3 pencils you need? After student 1 gives you an offer, ask them to step aside and have student 2 give an offer, etc. so it is essentially competitive bidding. Today I got offered a cow and some wood, a pig, and a cabin for my 3 pencils. Have the class vote on which is the best offer.
+introduce the word Barter (have them write it down)
+then discuss slides 1.5 -1.6 - when finished, ask "what are problems with trading animals and food? get some discussion going
+then show slide 1.8-1.9 and discuss the problems of fraud, spoilage, disease, and worth
+how about metal? 1.10 Ask about the problems here (say, the ticket price for the local theatre production is 3 giant pots ... too bulky, still don't know value)
+now do worksheet #2 - give them 4 minutes - make sure they focus
+pick 2 kids by name to present and talk about their picture and the value

3.3 Money (10 min)
+slide 1.12 - the king of Lydia has a solution
+quiz question 1 T/F - the smallest coins ever were smaller than apple seeds
+then show 1.13
+question 2 - mile of pennies (get votes for each option)
+question 3 - largest bill... get votes for each option... tell them to close their eyes and put up the overhead of the $100k bill
+ask what are the coins we have in the U.S. (dollar, half-dollar, quarter, dime, nickel, penny)
+do the math problem here --> add up the value of all our coins (ans = $1.91)
+put overhead 1.2 back up and explain that if all you had were coins, everybody would get weighed down... so paper money was invented to have larger value and to be lighter.

3.4. Summary (5 min)
+what did we learn? (write down: Barter, Money, Coins, Currency)
+so we talked about the history of money - we know why we have money and where it came from...
+Next week, -- Where do we get money ? (those ATMs do not MAKE money; and money doesn't grow on trees ! )

Planning for Money Savvy

Brady, Kwabe, Geoff and Urbany met to discuss current experience with the Money Savvy lessons at Muessel and Perley, anything we need to fix, etc.

The general thrust is that the lessons are going well, always seeking to find ways to engage the kids and encourage participation from all of them.

MATH. Mr. Strunk has offered some ideas to Geoff and John, particularly on the math problems that we can incorporate to help reinforce math instruction to standards. We need to build a portfolio of math problems around each lesson to give our volunteers choices and to accomodate differences across classrooms. We can use the blog for collecting those problems.

FUND-RAISING. Tom Harvey, Director of the Mendoza Masters of Non-Profit dropped in and we discussed fund-raising for next year. Tom had many ideas of folks we need to connect with including Rose Meisner of the Community Foundation, Chris Nanni, Nancy Ikeler of Asante, Mike Vogel (an Irish Angel) and Frank Belatti, an entrepreneur in residence here at Mendoza. One point Tom made was that there may be some organizations who can provide $5 - $7,000 without an arduous review process. We need to develop a plan and then get out there canvassing quickly in preparation for next year.

LEADERSHIP. Kwabe is the overall chair of School, Inc. in 2009-2010. Brady has agreed to be Director of the Money Savvy program. Kwabe and Brady will bring an outline of the business plan for Money Savvy for 2009-10 to lead the discussion at our next meeting, which is Friday, March 27 at 4:00 in Mendoza Room 121.

Thanks !

Lesson 4

Here is the lesson 4 plan Kwabe and I used at Muessel. Worked pretty well the only caution I have is to allow for more time than we did when handing out the pigs. Things kindof got off track after that.

Also here is the story problem we did in class along with the kids. We made handouts so each kid could follow along at their desks, seemed to work pretty well but it might help to review how you want to present the math before you start presenting it. For instance when I was writing it out I accidentally used a sq root sign instead of the long division sign. :-)

Lesson 4 –

Muessel Title slide – Review what we did last week

Take 5 minutes for kids to fill out WS #2 for lesson 4, then discuss Slide 1 – Explain slide, its very straightforward

Slide 2 – Discussion about saving. Does anyone here ever save money? Where are some ways that you guys save money? When you earn money do you save all of it or just a portion? Do you have way to figure out how much money to spend vs. save?

Slide 5 – Some kids use Banks to keep their money in, like adults.

Slide 6 – Savings accounts Two types of accounts Savings & Checking Checking is money you use to buy everyday things Savings is money you keep in the account for awhile – earns interest And so what is interest – any ideas?

Slide 7 – Explain what interest is. Follow slide

Slide 8 – Just used as a transition slide, read it and move on to the goals slide.

Slide 9 – Have the kids explain short vs. long term goals.

Slide 10 – Have the kids draw their savings goals in the workbook. Allow 7 minutes.

Slide 11 – Pig Explain the different slots and follow the slide. Make sure the kids are still paying attention b/c they will be distracted by the pig.

Slide 12 – Savings is the first slot on the pig. Have the kids pick out a savings sticker and put it on the pig. Give math problem regarding savings from handout. Take at least 5 minutes on it.

Slide – 16 Recap what we learned Talk about next week, spending!!

Money Savvy on Youtube

OK, forgetting that the source is Dr. Phil, this is a good video about the impact of Money Savvy fundamentals.

Once the video starts, grab the little circle and fast forward it to about :55 to skip all the promo stuff. It goes for about 5 minutes, but you can get the gist pretty quickly.

Here's the link --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW4yAoRn7VE

Math Problems

Here are the math problems we used for lessons 2 & 3.

Suppose Kwabena has 2 Dollar Bills, 3 Quarters, 2 Dimes, 1 Nickel, and 3 Pennies. How much money does he have?

Choices: $2.75 $3.56 $3.03 $10.45

If Brady deposits $5.00 into his bank account which amounts could he withdraw?

Choices: $4.50 $7.80 $1.00 $5.01

If Kwabena has $10.00 in his bank account how many $3.25 sandwiches can he buy?

Choices: 2 1 7 3

Lesson 3 Problems

List the different ways you could spend exactly $10.00 on these items. You can only buy one of each item.

T-shirt $5.00
Toy car $3.00
Stuffed Giraffe $2.50
Toy Train $7.00
Ball $4.50
Puzzle $2.00

Suppose Brady rakes leaves and gets paid $4.00 per yard. He wants to buy an X-box game which costs $25.00. How many yards will he need to rake to buy the game?

Lesson 3

 Lesson 3 – Muessel (This lesson was actually great as is, we didn't change much)

Title slide – What did we learn last week?

Give kids handout with problems on them.  Do problem #1 now and discuss.  Make a tally about different ways the kids could spend $10.00

Slide 1 – Kids can earn $ too

Did anyone earn any money over the weekend?  How? 

Explain how jobs that kids can do really are businesses, use slide for aid. 

Slide 3 – Entrepreneur stuff

An entrepreneur is someone who starts a business.   – Keep it very basic.

Slide 4 – Elena the entrepreneur

Great slide, just read through this one and move on to slide 5.

Slide 5 – Break even

Go over expenses – If she charges $5 a day how many days until she breaks even? 

“A business that fails its customers will fail itself”  - What do you think this means?

Slides 6-9

Great problem about the lemonade stand.  After slide 8 ask the kids how many cups of lemonade will Eric need to sell to earn $15 profit.  Walk them through the problem step by step.

Slide 10 -You can be an entrepreneur too

Have the kids draw business ideas of their own in the workbook, then discuss. 

Slide 11 – Recap what we learned this week

Talk about next week and pig

 

Lesson 2 - Muessel

Title slide – Review Key points from last time (History of money)

Slide 1 – Where do we get money? 5mins

·         What are some ways that you guys get money?  Either gifts or earning

Slide 2 – Where do grownups get money? – 5mins

·         From ATM’s Banks, probably won’t talk about currency exchanges. 

·         Its not magic, the money has to be put into the bank account before it can come out.

·         Can anyone tell me what a Bank is?

·         But they really earn money at their jobs. 

Slide 4 – Earn money at their Jobs – 5mins

·         Does anyone know what they want to do when they are grown up?  Give hints if necessary

Slide 7 – Time is Money – 5mins

·         What does that mean?

·         Explain that people trade their time for money. 

·         Give up free time to earn $$, what are you giving up your time for?

·         Why, because school is important, you will need it later to  earn money. 

Slide 8 & 9 – 5mins

·         Adults receive paychecks from their jobs.  Then they deposit their checks into bank accounts so they can use the money. 

Slide 10 & 11 – You can only take out what you put in. 20mins

·         Show basic examples from slide then transition to harder Q’s on overhead. 

·         At least one story problem. 

·         Do in class worksheet (something with drawing) – make a timeframe for completion and stick to it. 

Slide 13 – Summation and next week.  5 mins

·         What did we learn today, make list on overhead. 

·         Next week we will be talking about running a business and even kids can do things to earn money. 

 

Math ISTEPS, 2005-2008

The 2007-08 Annual School Performance Report was published in the South Bend Tribune on January 30, 2009.

Since 2005-06, both Muessel and Perley show upward trends, thanks in no small part to the teachers with whom we are currently working ! Both schools are now at a little over 50 percent passing.

We can see, though, that there is room to grow in stretching toward the state average and beyond.

The next ISTEP is coming up in March/ April. Let's use Money Savvy to play a part in helping prepare the kids for these important tests.

Lesson one outline

Day one lesson plan – Muessel 45mins

Title Slide – 10 mins

·         Brief personal intros

·         Can anyone tell me what Savvy means?

·         General objectives for the course

o   Encourage participation – mistakes are good

o   Show of hands – Have you ever traded anyone for something?

o   If I had 8 pieces of chalk and Kwabena had 3 erasers what would be a fair trade, how many pieces of chalk for one eraser.  Tally votes on board, comment on how its hard to agree on how much chalk you should give up for an eraser. 

Slide 2 – What is money? - 5 mins

·         Explain coins & paper currency

o   Made by the government, used to buy stuff.

o   Now say that each piece of chalk is worth $1 and an eraser is worth $3.  Now how many pieces of chalk would you trade for an eraser.  Tally results and explain how money makes it easier to tell how much stuff is worth. 

Slide 5 & 6 – Animals & Food – 5 mins

·         Years ago before money people used to trade things – like animals.

·         Comment on how much of a hassle that must have been – imagine if you had to herd animals instead of carrying a wallet. 

o   Ask the kids what problems might come from trading food – hopefully they have some creative answers. 

Slide 8 – Why bartering didn’t work out 2.5 mins

·         Basically just read caption – kids should have basic idea from chalk example

·         Make fun of Baaaaaad joke on slide

Slide 10 – Metal 2.5 mins

·         Just read caption – common metals traded were gold, silver, iron, and bronze

·         Money had to be weighed to tell how much it was worth. 

Slide 12 – A smart king invented money – 5 mins

·         Very similar to the money used today because it was made and controlled by the government.

·         Money fun facts – Two truths and a lie – see if the kids can pick out which isn’t true

o   The smallest coins ever used were smaller than apple seeds.  People carried them in their mouth so they wouldn’t get lost or stolen.   TRUE

o   A mile of pennies laid out is worth $3,466.  False, its only worth $844

o   The largest bill ever printed was $100,000.  True, it had president Woodrow Wilson on it. 

Exercise – 1 worksheet – 15 mins

·         Kids can work in groups – encourage collaboration

·         Walk around and help the kids as necessary

·         Brief discussion of worksheet & have the kids raise their hands to make a list of takeaways (give hints as needed)

Slide 13 – Touch on what we will go over next time.  

Cait (Carey of course), John, Geoff, Brady, Kwabena, Vanessa, Jamie, Bill, Jenn: What do you think?

The idea of this blog would be to inform, provide a stream of info about the Money Savvy project, but in particular give the volunteers and teachers a means of sharing successes, challenges, and new ideas. We could also collect all project materials (handouts, overheads, forms, etc.) in a way linked to the blog.

This could be a useful way to collect the history / story line of this experience and build our knowledge, and prepare for upcoming terms. It's amazingly easy to use, too - I can show you in about 10 minutes.

What do you think? good idea or bad ? (the answer to that is based on whether or not you're able / willing to add content, news, and prompt discussion from volunteers and other interested folks).

Hit the comment link below to provide your thoughts.