Title of Project: Bluejay Bank

Grade Level: 6-8

Number of Students Participating:

Contributed by: 57

Teacher: Jana Hagedorn

School: St. Joseph, Cold Spring

District or County: Diocese of Covington

Overview/Description of Project:

The sixth grade class provides banking opportunities for the children at St. Joseph School by managing and maintaining the financial accounts as part of their math class. The students also provide advertising, marketing, and basic financial education to the school.

Goals

1. 6th graders will develop strong math, communication and business skills and knowledge through the project. They will

be proponents of responsible money management while managing a not-for-profit business. Each 6th grade class participates in the banking and the decision about allocating earnings to a charitable organization.

2. All the students in the school will have the opportunity to open and build a savings account and learn basic money-management skills.

Core Content Areas

Math - 1. using combination of the four basic operations to solve real world problems.

2. Collect, organize, analyze, and interpret data in a variety of graphical methods; select an appropriate graph to

represent given data.

3. Problem solving, mathematical connections and mathematical reasoning.

STEP BY STEP GUIDE

STEP 1: PREPARATION

1. August/September – Math teacher offers students opportunity to apply math concepts by managing the school bank.

2. Students, with their teachers invite a local bank representative to speak about ‘how to’ run a bank.

3. Students and teacher create schedule, assign job schedule for the year and advertise within the school with verbal and written notification.

STEP 2: ACTION

1. Students advertise monthly for the Bluejay Bank morning through the announcements and posters.

2. Students manage the bank transactions each month with the assistance of a bank representative and teachers.

3. Students maintain the accounting and management of the bank funds.

4. 6th grade students prepare a presentation to educate and solicit future interest from the current fifth grade to carry on the bank the next year.

STEP 3: REFLECTION

August -Students reflect upon whether they choose to act as bankers for the school and how they will run the bank.

Students verbally discuss and reflect upon ways to encourage responsible money management, creating

Informative announcements and posters to educate the school body.

Students and teacher discuss possible recipients for the bank’s profit. Group consensus is achieved through discussion, research and group decision making activities.

Students choose who, when and how the bank profit will be presented to charitable group.

STEP 4: CELEBRATION

During May, the class invites the bank, charitable organization, and ??? to present check, talk about what they have learned, ….? (not sure what you have planned, let me know if I can help with this at all.)