A Birthday Surprise

Setting the Scene

Financial understanding
You could use this page to assess students’ prior knowledge of financial ideas and understandings.
One purpose of this particular book is to make students aware of the variety of choices they have available to them regarding money and finance. Your class could do the activities in this book in their entirety as a unit of work on financial literacy, or you could choose a selection of activities, depending on students’ needs and areas of interest. In either case, it’s advisable to work through pages 1–3 to set the scene and familiarise the students with the financial terms.
Whatever decisions a person might make, they should be informed ones, that is, decisions made with an understanding of all the other choices and consequences. All the grandchildren in this book make different decisions with their money gift. This is consistent with the key understanding that people make different financial decisions because they have different preferences.
As you work through the various scenarios with the class, you may need to spend more teaching time on the choices/decisions that your students know little about, such as investments, or that they may be misinformed about, such as hire-purchase agreements and credit cards.
You can use this “setting the scene” page with the whole class or with a group in a discussion format. Some questions you may like to ask are:
Have any of you ever received a gift of money – for example, for your birthday?
What did you do with your money gift?
Did you wish later that you had used it differently?
Alternatively, you could say: Let’s imagine my uncle has just given me $1,000! What do you think I should do with this money? Many students are interested in their teachers’ lives and may come up with a greater variety of suggestions than if asked what they would do with the money themselves.
You could introduce the book this way: This book is all about eight lucky grandchildren who receive a gift of money from their grandmother. (Give students the opportunity to read the email.) Promote discussion by asking questions such as:
Why is Granny giving her money away while she is still alive?
What is a will? (A will is a legal document that outlines how a person wants their estate [their belongings] to be distributed when they die.)
How does a trust fund work? (A trust is a legal structure in which assets, such as house, money, and shares, are placed in safe keeping so that no individual has sole access. There are named beneficiaries of any trust.)
Why do you think the younger children in this book only get $1,000 at first?
What are some ways the grandchildren might use the money? (Most choices fall into four categories: save, spend, invest, donate. You may like to list students’ ideas and then group them under these headings.)
Do you think their age will affect their decision? (Yes. Older children are allowed by law to drive, leave home, and speculate on the stock market without parental supervision. They usually have different interests to those of younger children.)
Do you think all the children will have the same goals?
Do you have goals? Are any of your goals financial ones?

Reflective question

It’s a good idea to have students write down their ideas to this reflective question (What would you do if you were given $1,000 today?) because they may need to refer to their decision at the end of the unit, when they are asked to reflect on their earlier answer.
It is important to emphasise that people usually must earn their money. Lottery prizes, gifts, and inheritances are at best “one-off ” events and not to be relied upon.

Social Sciences Links
Achievement objectives:
• Understand how people make choices about their needs and wants (Social Studies, level 2)
You could discuss with the students what are needs and wants and how these might influence decisions about access to resources.
• Understand how people make decisions about access to and use of resources (Social Studies, level 3)
You could ask the students What influences those decisions? Discussion could include needs, wants, family, experience (or lack of experience), culture, awareness of the environment and other people, how much people already have, and so on.

Other Cross-curricular Links
English achievement objective:
• Purposes and audiences: Show a developing/increasing understanding of how to shape texts for different purposes and audiences (Speaking, Writing, and Presenting, levels 3–4)
Students could:
– write a thank you letter or email to their grandmother for the gift
– create an imaginary will.

Answers

Setting the Scene
No answers required, although there is scope for discussion.

Reflective question
Answers will vary. (This question is referred to again at the end of the book.)