Learning to Give, Philanthropy education resources that teach giving and civic engagement
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Unit Overview:
Unit Purpose:
Unit Objectives:
The learner will:
- define philanthropy (philanthropist) as giving time, talent, or treasure, and taking action for the common good.
- describe the concepts: wants, needs, resources, scarcity, opportunity cost.
- define spend, save, invest, and donate.
- sing the song “You Can Bank on Me.” (younger learners)
- brainstorm motivations for giving, and options for donating.
- describe choices one can make with money.
- participate in discussions about the uses of money.
- identify two uses of money.
- define incentives and describe positive and negative incentives.
- define income, save and goal.
- give examples of short-term run and long-term goals.
- compare the use of money in two literature stories.
- define how the choices can effect their own well-being and that of the community.
- use an economic decision-making model.
- read and write amounts of money using decimal notations.
- distinguish between a penny, nickel, dime , quarter, half dollar, dollar coins, and dollar bills.
- recite the value of various coins and bills.
- group coins in various ways coins to equal a dollar.
- create and interpret data tables and bar graphs. (grades 4 and 5)
- identify personal income and expenditures.
- create a personal budget reflecting spending, saving, investing, and donating.
- act as a philanthropist in giving money to a charity the class chooses.
Service Experience:
The students will collect coins over the course of the unit. They will identify a need in their community, select an organization to receive their money and present the gift.
Unit Assessment:
Display the Learning to Give four-part bank. Give students story paper and have them draw a picture and/or write to show how they would use money income they receive in their own lives. Use the following rubric for scoring:
4 -Pictures or writing showing three or more supports, use of three vocabulary words along with constructive thought and legible writing
3 -Pictures or writing with two or more supports, use of two vocabulary words and legible writing
2 -Simple picture, one support sentence, one vocabulary word included
1 -Simple picture
A teacher-created vocabulary quiz may be used.
School/Home Connection:
School/Home Connection:
“Copy-and-Paste” Class/School Newsletter Information Insert:
You may see your child taking a much greater interest in money and how to spend, save, donate, and/or invest it in the next few weeks. Students will also be learning about philanthropy, how and why people give or share their time, talent or treasure, and take action for the common good. In this unit, we will focus on sharing “treasure.” Our class will read two wonderful children’s books that illustrate the difference between saving and spending. Over the course of the unit, the students will bring in small change and put it in a collection jar in our classroom. Then, a special economic decision-making model will help us come to consensus about where to donate that money. We culminate our financial literacy/philanthropy unit with a lesson about budgeting that utilizes the Learning to Give bank that the children take home and use for saving, spending, donating, and investing their own money with your help and advice.Interactive Parent / Student Homework:
- In Lesson One: Spend, Save, Invest, or Donate, the students are asked to earn money to donate. (See Attachment Two: Letter to Families from Lesson One: Spend, Save, Invest, or Donate)
- In Lesson Three: Making Good Money Choices, children take home the economic decision-making grid created in class. Parents and children talk about the process.
- In Lesson Five: My Bank, My Decision, My Budget! A letter is sent home (see Attachment Two: A Note about the Learning To Give Four-Part Bank from Lesson Five: My Bank, My Budget, My Decisions! explaining to families the purpose of the four-part banks, and Parent guide.
Teacher Note:
In order to avoid feelings of embarrassment or inadequacy on the part of any student, the teacher may want to have some coins available for those children who are unable to bring them from home or for those who forget to bring them.Lesson One, Attachment Five is an optional student “Journal/Workbook” that can be duplicated for each student, for use with all the lessons, and then sent home at the end of the unit with the bank. If printing the entire booklet for the students is not appropriate or possible, selected pages can be printed and used where appropriate.
Teacher Note: After Lesson Three, plan for a representative from the student selected charity come to class to collect the money.
State Curriculum and Philanthropy Theme Frameworks:
See individual lessons for benchmark detail.
Lessons Developed By:
John Noling
Curriculum Consultant
Learning to Give
All rights reserved. Permission is granted to freely use this information for nonprofit (noncommercial), educational purposes only. Copyright must be acknowledged on all copies.
