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3rd grade · Math · Unit 18 of 18

Money Choices

Skills, prices, credit and saving

What your child practices

Personal financial literacy: your child connects skills and work to income, sees how scarcity changes prices, weighs planned and unplanned spending, learns what credit is and who pays it back, and makes a simple savings plan.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) teks student expectation: 3.9(A); 3.9(B); 3.9(C); 3.9(D); 3.9(E); 3.9(F) · work and income, scarcity and cost, spending decisions, credit, and saving

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Skills and training help people earn income.
  2. When something is scarce, it usually costs more.
  3. Credit is borrowed money that the borrower must pay back. A savings plan puts money away regularly for a goal.

Example: Kim wants a $24 game. She saves $4 a week. How many weeks will it take? Divide the cost by the amount saved each week: 24 ÷ 4 = 6. Answer: 6 weeks

Money Choices in Texas

In the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), this is unit 18 of 18 in 3rd grade Math, after Coins & Bills.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Texas Education Agency (TEA)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    What is credit?

    • money you are given as a gift
    • borrowing money now and paying it back later
    • money you find
    • money you earn at work

  2. Question 2

    Which is a good reason to save?

    • to make prices go up
    • to lose your money
    • to pay for college someday
    • to stop working

  3. Question 3

    Which is a planned spending decision?

    • buying candy at the checkout without thinking
    • making a list before going shopping
    • spending all your money at once
    • buying a toy because a friend has one

  4. Question 4

    What is a cost of unplanned spending?

    • prices go down
    • you always save more
    • you may not have money left for things you need
    • you get paid more

  5. Question 5

    What is human capital?

    • the price of a toy
    • the money in a bank
    • the skills and knowledge a worker brings to a job
    • the buildings a company owns

  6. Question 6

    A shirt costs $12. You have a $10 bill and 6 quarters. Can you buy it?

    • no, you have $11.50
    • yes, you have exactly $12.00
    • yes, you have $12.50

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