Financial Literacy Games for the Classroom

Hands-on money games that turn credit, budgeting, and saving into something students actually want to play.

DEAL OR NO DEAL

Objective: Students will be able to weigh risk against reward, evaluating a guaranteed "banker's offer" against the probability and potential value of an unknown outcome.

SEL competency: Responsible Decision-Making (CASEL). Students identify options, evaluate likely consequences, and commit to a reasoned choice.

Instructions (how to play):

Present the player with a set of numbered cases, each secretly holding a different dollar amount, low to high.
The player chooses one case to keep as their own; its value stays hidden.
Round by round, the player opens other cases, revealing and removing those amounts from play, which narrows the remaining possibilities.
After each round, the Banker offers a guaranteed buyout based on what's still in play. The player decides: Deal (take the sure thing) or No Deal (keep going and risk it).
Play continues until the player accepts a deal or opens down to their final case.

WHEEL OF WEALTH

Objective: Students will reinforce and recall key personal-finance vocabulary.

Common Core State Standard: CCSS ELA/Literacy: L.4.6 — Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate general academic and domain-specific words and phrases.

Instructions (how to play):

Choose how many teams are playing and give each team a name.
A category and a row of hidden tiles appear — the tiles spell out a personal-finance word or phrase for teams to uncover.
On your team's turn, spin the wheel to set the dollar value each correct letter is worth (watch for Bankrupt and Lose a Turn).
Call a letter. If it's in the puzzle, every matching tile flips over, your team banks the wheel value for each one, and then you spin again. If the letter isn't there, play passes to the next team.
Solve the puzzle to win the round and lock in your points.

ARE YOU SMARTER THAN A MILLIONAIRE

Objective: Students will be able to recall and apply core financial-literacy concepts across four domains: credit scores, credit cards, payday and earnings, and budgeting

National standard alignment: National Standards for Personal Financial Education: Credit 8-5 — Lenders charge different interest rates based on borrower risk of nonpayment, which is commonly evaluated using information in the borrower's credit report.

Instructions (how to play):

Tap "Start Class," then choose one of five rounds — from "The Basics" up to "Millionaire-Level." Each round is harder than the last.
Inside a round, pick one of four categories: Credit Score, Credit Cards, Payday, or Budgeting.
Read the question and choose an answer (A–D). The board instantly shows whether you're right and explains why, so you learn the concept either way.
Answer one question from all four categories to finish the round; each completed category locks with a check, and your score appears out of 4.

JEOPARDY

Objective: Students will build wealth-and-investing knowledge by recognizing major publicly traded companies from their stock ticker symbols, defining core investing vocabulary (stock, dividend, diversification, compound interest, bull vs. bear market, ROI), and applying the Rule of 72 to estimate how many years it takes an investment to double at a given annual rate of return.

Common Core State Standard: HSF.LE.A.4 — for exponential models, express as a logarithm the solution to ab^(ct) = d where a, c, and d are numbers and the base b is 2, 10, or e, evaluating the logarithm using technology.

Instructions (how to play):

Pick a board: Big Brands, Daily Life, Snacks & Hustle, or Random, then choose a category and dollar value.
A clue appears with a 20-second timer. Respond in the form of a question, Jeopardy-style: for ticker clues, name the company ("What is Apple?");
For The Rule of 72 clues, divide 72 by the annual rate to estimate the years to double (e.g., 72 ÷ 9% = 8 years) and answer in question form ("What is 8 years?").
Reveal the answer, then mark Correct (+value) or Missed it (−value) to keep score.