Dimitri Hammond

28th April, 2006

Fancy Finance

Lesson            

Teach students about the importance of budgeting and money investment.

The lesson will incorporate use of interest formulas, examples, and their individual real-world applications.

Target Class & Grade          

Juniors (11th grade) and Seniors (12th grade) in Math Modeling.

TEKS            

111.36.5   (A) - use rates, linear functions, and direct variation to solve problems involving personal finance and budgeting, including compensations and deductions;

(B) - solve problems involving personal taxes; and

 (C) - analyze data to make decisions about banking.

111.36.6   (C) - use amortization models to investigate automobile financing and compare buying and leasing a vehicle.

111.36.7   (A) - analyze types of savings options involving simple and compound interest and compare relative advantages of these options;

(C) - investigate and compare investment options including stocks, bonds, annuities, and retirement plans

Print Resources           

Ziefert, Harriet.  (2003).  You Can't Buy a Dinosaur with a Dime.  Brookyn: Blue Apple Books.

 Text Type: 

•  tradebook (fiction)
• tradebook (picture book)

 Implementation:

•  Use as anticipatory set/warm up for students.  Introduce topic.

 Synopsis:

• This is about a little boy who wants to buy a plastic dinosaur but must save up money to do so, first.  It steps through his week where he works in the yard for money, picks up coins, and receives an allowance.  He tracks all of his "income" and continues until he has enough savings to get his dinosaur.
•  The big pictures and silly story will engage the students and loosen them up and enable them to have some fun with the subject.
• The rhyming layout of the text makes the reading fun and easy.
• Helps get the students immediately connected with the subject because each of them, or their parents, had wanted and/or saved up for something in their past.

Bijlefeld, Marjolijn.  Zoumbaris, Sharon K.  (2000).  Teen Guide to Personal Financial Management.  Westport: Greenwood Press.

 Text Type: 

•  tradebook (non-fiction)

 Implementation:

• Read the beginning of chapter 6: "A Budget: Your Friend for Life."
• Fill in worksheet following text in book to make their own personal budget.

 Synopsis:

• This book has information not typically covered in schools about financial responsibilities.  It covers everything from new jobs and budgeting to investments to car loans and house mortgages.
•  The material is targeted to teens and their everyday, relevant life.
• The reading level is right at 11th grade.  This may be difficult for some students in the class, but the passage is short and connects with everything that matters to them: buying a car, having a credit card, going out, living on their own, college, etc.
• Is another great introduction into the topic but on a more realistic and relating level.  Also starts to cover some of the math behind the issues.
•  Appendix has a list of education resources, websites, financial management services, etc.  Good reference for further education on topic.

 

Clayton, Cheryl.  (1995).  Mathematics of Money With Algebra.  Cincinnati: South-Western Publishing.

 Text Type: 

• textbook

 Implementation:

•  Determine a future financial goal.
• Use chapters of text to provide specific information about their goal (i.e. car: chapter 10, start business: chapter 4, travel: chapter 11, etc).
•  Combine budget from tradebook worksheet, the interest formulas provided in chapter 3 of this text, and their financial goal and have them write out a financial plan to get them to their goal.

 Synopsis:

•  This is a textbook for Junior and Senior level high school students that covers algebra, math modeling, and geometry topics through the real world applications of employment, purchases, and other finances.
•  Using the text as a reference for their topic of choice will alleviate some of the textbook intimidation.
• There are pictures, but they're outdated.  At least all of the applications are very real and practical.
• Gets the student more familiar with the text for when they use it for future coursework.

 Quantitative Analysis

•  “A credit rating is an indication of a person's ability to secure goods, services, and money in return for the promise to pay.  Daryl knows a favorable credit rating does not come automatically.  His father's good rating has developed slowly over time.  It has been nurtured, fostered, strengthened, and improved.  A good credit rating is an asset of tremendous value to those who develop it over a long period, but it can easily be destroyed.  A good credit rating is sensitive to abuse and usually continues only as long as it is justified.  Daryl's father has so much credit now…” (292).

Fry:

5.5 sentences, 164 syllables, 12th grade.

Flesch-Kincaid :

14.2 Words/sentence, 4.6 characters/word, 28% Passive sent. 53.5 Flesch Reading ease, 9.3 Grade Level.

•  “When Olivia's parents were making plans to sell their house, they reviewed all of their finances.  Since Olivia was interested, they decided that she was old enough to learn about household budgets.  Olivia was surprised to discover how many decisions must be made when buying food and how much food costs.  This doesn't mean that good food is necessarily expensive.  Sometimes just the opposite is true.  Some very nutritious foods are reasonable priced.  Some prepared foods that contain a lot of fat or preservatives may be expensive.  Olivia not only studied the family's food budget, but also did some of…” (629).

Fry:

7.5 sentences, 161 syllables, 9th grade.

Flesch-Kincaid :

12.5 Words/sentence, 4.6 characters/word, 12% Passive sent.

57 Flesch Reading ease, 8.4 Grade Level.

•  I'd say that the average reading level of this book is Sophomore (10) level.  This is appropriate because it will be readable by more of juniors than if it were actually 11th grade level.

 Qualitative Analysis (Using Readability Checklist)

•  Understandability:  This text does an excellent job connecting math concepts with concrete examples.  These examples, being primarily financial, not only prepare the student for applications in the future, but use a topic to which many students by 10th grade (the grade intended for the subject) have some degree of schema.  This book also successfully introduces new concepts in a gradual and reasonable and understandable pace.
•  Usability: Although the table of contents and individual chapter headings do a poor job of describing the topics of the chapters, the section headings do well to bring out the important concepts of the chapters.  The graphs and charts do support the content and examples, as do the pictures.  However, the pictures are very old, at least by a decade, so they're more difficult for the students to still relate to or have credibility in, especially the pictures pertaining to technology (computers, cars, etc).  The text itself may get lengthy, but at least the key words are bolded and the review questions concise.
•  Interestability:  Fortunately the topics in this text apply directly to the students' future lives so that they won't get too frustrated by all the writing and math contained wherein.  The chapter names and section headings, although brief and non-detailed, do impart a sense of meaning to the students that will attract their interest.

 Synthesis

•  In conclusion, this book is above average in its effectiveness to the 10th through 12th grade users it's targeted to.  There are some things that keep it from being ideal, but there are more things that make it useful.  Since the explanations and applications are simple and straightforward, this would be a great text to assign reading activities for.  Hopefully future editions will have some more up-to-date pictures.

Rule of 72.  (n.d.) Retrieved on 28th of April, 2006 from the MoneyChimp website: http://www.moneychimp.com/features/rule72.htm

 Text Type: 

• internet text (web site)

 Implementation:

•  Have the students visit the site to read about the Rule of 72 and experiment with the inline calculator.
• This is mainly used as a tool for providing awareness to the students of the Rule of 72 and the prospect of doubling their money through investments.

 Synopsis:

•  This site is a brief explanation of the Rule of 72, the rule that states that you divide the number 72 by your percentage rate to get the number of years it will take for your money to double.  
• The site also has an in-line calculator that does the division for you so you can quickly experiment with some numbers.
• A link in the site brings you to another page that explains the mathematical derivation of the rule.
• This is a great resource because it's short, to the point, and allows them to directly play with some numbers to appease their curiosity.  

Faerber, Esme. (2003).  The Personal Finance Calculator: How to Calculate the Most Important Financial Decisions of You Life.  New York: McGraw Hill.

 Text Type: 

• tradebook (non-fiction)

 Implementation:

•  An alternative source for formulas and tables.
• Students can use tables to organize their data for their investment priorities and calculations.

 Synopsis:

•  This book covers all of the calculations one would need to organize their financial planning.  Everything from investments to budgeting to retirement is covered with convenient tables and step-by-step outlines for using finance operations on a calculator.
• This book would be best used as an auxiliary reference for formulas and tables.

 Quantitative Analysis

• "This is the fund that is used for unexpected events. There is always the possibility of losing a job, getting sick, or having some other unfortunate situation occur, which could cause financial chaos. Having an emergency fund can help in such situations. The question is: How much should be kept in an emergency fund?  The rule of thumb is to have three to six months of living expenses in an emergency fund. The exact amount depends on your circumstances. If you have a stable employment situation and other accounts or sources that you can tap into for your short-term” (53).

Fry:

6.5 sentences, 157 syllables, 9th grade.

Flesch-Kincaid :

13.1 Words/sentence, 4.6 characters/word, 33% Passive sent.

55.3 Flesch Reading ease, 8.8 Grade Level.

• I'd say that the average reading level of this book is Freshman (9th grade) level.  This makes it readable to more students, as well as more parents.

 Qualitative Checklist

•  Understandability:  This book doesn't provide much of a solid level of understanding for those ignorant of, or new to, the subject of financial planning.  I will definitely need to provide assistance in understanding any text they choose to read.  However, the references of the lookup tables and formulas are easy to find and understand and very useful.
•  Usability: Finding things in this text are easy, especially courtesy of the highly detailed table of contents and placement of tables and formulas.  The sentence structure is sometimes a little complex and not exactly at the 8th grade reading level that it placed at with the passage above.
•  Interestability:  The book sometimes uses examples. but even rarely use truly relevant examples.  The writing style is definitely not interesting for students in Math Modeling class, since most of them aren't into reading lots of math jargon.  Again, this text is used better as a reference.

 Synthesis

•  In conclusion, this book has some great information but is not the most exciting thing to read through.  Straight reading assignments on this book should be made sparingly and only on small snippets at a time.  The thorough index provides a convenient way, however, to find the many useful formulas and tables that the book has, providing a useful reference.