NGPF Money Magic is a platform created by Next Gen Personal Finance, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving personal finance education. NGPF Money Magic provides educators with a collection of interactive and engaging activities to teach students about various financial topics. The NGPF Money Magic platform includes a diverse range of activities that cater to different learning styles and objectives. Some of the activities available on the platform include simulations, role-playing games, case studies, and online modules. These activities are designed to make learning about personal finance fun and interactive for students. One of the key features of NGPF Money Magic is its focus on real-world financial scenarios.
Next Gen Personal Finance Teams Up with BrainPOP To Help K-12 Students Build Financial Literacy
NEW YORK , April 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Financial education market leader Next Gen Personal Finance (NGPF) is excited to announce a new collaboration with online educational solution BrainPOP. Award-winning games from NGPF now appear on the BrainPOP GameUp platform, a curated collection of cross-curricular, online learning games from leading publishers.
Timed with Financial Literacy Month, GameUp is currently featuring three NGPF games covering topics such as loans (Shady Sam), budgeting (Money Magic), and managing credit (Cat Insanity).
"This collaboration with BrainPOP aligns so well with our strategic goals to improve access to financial education. Through their incredible GameUp platform, BrainPOP will enable our games to reach millions of students, and reach them earlier," said Tim Ranzetta , co-founder of Next Gen Personal Finance.
Six million students have played an NGPF Arcade game since their release in 2018. Research has shown that the gamification of financial education can increase engagement, improve knowledge retention, and foster communication about personal finance.
"Financial literacy is a crucial competency for kids to develop at a young age," said Karina Linch , chief product officer at BrainPOP. "Games like these provide an engaging and low-stakes space for kids to explore the basics of finance, empowering them to make responsible decisions about spending and saving now and in the future."
About Next Gen Personal Finance
Next Gen Personal Finance (NGPF), a non-profit dedicated to increasing access to personal finance education, has become the "one-stop shop" for more than 40,000 financial educators looking for high-quality, engaging curriculum to equip students with skills to thrive in their future. More than seventy percent (70%) of U.S. high school students attend a school where a teacher is using NGPF's personal finance curriculum.
In addition to curriculum, NGPF invests deeply in teachers, providing more than 130,000 hours of professional development since March of 2020. NGPF has been recognized by Common Sense Education as a Top Website for Teachers to Find Lesson Plans and a top pick in their Best Business and Finance Games category. NGPF and the community of personal finance educators has committed to Mission 2030, that is, by 2030 all high school students will cross the graduation stage having taken a one semester personal finance course.
About BrainPOP
BrainPOP is an online educational solution that makes rigorous learning experiences accessible and engaging for all. Proven to raise academic achievement, it has been a trusted resource to more than six million educators and has engaged the hearts and challenged the minds of over 300 million learners worldwide. 70% of K-8 U.S. schools have turned to BrainPOP as a go-to resource for remote learning, and nine out of 10 educators would recommend it to a friend or colleague. BrainPOP provides endless opportunities for kids to take agency over their learning through playful, knowledge-building content and learner-driven projects that strengthen critical, computational, and creative thinking across the entire curriculum. The company is committed to empowering kids to succeed and thrive in the classroom and beyond.
SOURCE Next Gen Personal Finance
4 priceless money lessons for kids
Financial tradeoffs, interest rates and the importance of having an emergency fund: Our current economic circumstances are full of teachable moments we can and should share with our children. After all, they’re probably not learning these topics in school. Only 1 in 6 students will be required to take a personal finance course before earning a high school diploma, according to nonprofit Next Gen Personal Finance.
That’s why we’re equipping you with money tips and topics to discuss with the children in your life, plus independent study materials (ahem, videos and games) that will hold kids’ attention while teaching them money management. Keep reading to get to the head of the class.
Being in charge of the budget
Are your children constantly asking you for money? One Florida father found a way to nip that in the bud: He had his teen and preteen sign a contract stating what expenses he would pay for, then gave them a set amount of money to spend each month for clothing, cellphone bill and extras. “My son’s hard lesson came when his friend pushed him into a pool along with his cellphone. He learned why it’s important to build a reserve for unexpected expenses,” the father said. Giving your kids a paycheck allows them the chance to make financial decisions – and experience the consequences firsthand.
The economics of higher ed
We’ve all asked a kid, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Instead ask what their interests are, and help them explore how they might be applied in a future career. This teaches them adaptability, something of value in a changing economic landscape.
As they get closer to making a decision about whether to attend college or trade school, help them think through the costs and benefits. Junior Achievement’s Access Your Future app can help them crunch the numbers. And if you have a child already attending college, know that timing is everything. Yale researchers have found that graduating from college in a bad economy has a lasting negative impact on wages – and many students are considering gap years and grad school because of this.
The roots of retirement
Raise your hand if you want to raise a child who will hit the ground running when it comes to saving for retirement. Personal finance experts say we should let our children know that retirement is the biggest expense they’ll ever save for, and it’s important to start early. To help them understand the value of compounding, help them open a savings account (or guardian-type brokerage account) where they can experience the power of this phenomenon for themselves.
Extra credit knowledge
When you’re young and don’t have much money, it’s easy to rely too much on credit and jeopardize your financial future. Help your child understand the importance of a good credit score, and explain how you keep yours up. Share stories about how you financed your first car or house, and explain in concrete terms how the interest rate affected the overall purchase price. Finally, consider adding your teen as an authorized user on your credit card and teaching them how to read a statement and pay the balance in full each month.
Homeschool resources
- Search ngpf.org/arcade for web-based games like “Money Magic,” “Payback,” “Stax” and “Credit Clash”
For younger kids:
- Schoolhouse Rock! vintage videos like “Budget” and “Dollars and Sense”
- Cha-chingusa.org offers Money Smart Kids videos like “Do it Passionately” and “Saving for Success”
In giving your child the gift of financial literacy, you’re helping set them up for a brighter future. Through a purposeful approach, we can all do our part to raise the next generation of resourceful citizens.
Next steps
- Have family or friends share stories of how they thrived during a recession or found creative ways to stretch a budget.
- Consider helping your child get started with investing, keeping in mind their investments will change calculations for college aid.
- Introduce your family members – even the younger ones – to your advisor, who can act as a teacher’s aide for financial literacy.
4 Best Budget Activities for Middle School
McKenna Garrison joined the iCEV marketing team in 2022 as the Content Marketing Specialist. Originally from a small town on the Gulf of Mexico, Garrison attended Texas Tech University from which she graduated with a B.A. in Public Relations & Strategic Community and an M.A. in Mass Communication & Media Studies. Garrison looks forward to bringing more of a storytelling element to iCEV social media pages. She also hopes to connect other CTE educators from around the country to the incredible curricula and resources iCEV has to offer.
If you're teaching budgeting in middle school, it's important to engage your students with age-appropriate activities. After all, your young learners are just beginning to discover the importance of proper money management and why setting saving goals and spending limitations can help them in the long run.
But without the right resources, the importance of budgeting could be lost on your students, leaving them without the skills needed to avoid financial difficulties later. Fortunately, there are many activities to help you build your middle schoolers' budgeting skills.
In this post, you'll discover four of the best budgeting activities for middle school students:
- Budgeting Activity for Google Drive
- Budgeting Activities from Next Gen Personal Finance
- The Classroom Sparrow Monthly Budgeting Project
- Money Magic Desktop Game by BrainPOP
After reading, you'll have a better picture of the projects available so you can decide what is most appropriate for your classroom.
One of the key features of NGPF Money Magic is its focus on real-world financial scenarios. The activities provided on the platform often involve students making decisions based on realistic financial situations that they may encounter in their lives. This helps to make the learning experience more relatable and applicable to students' everyday lives.
1. Budgeting Activity for Google Drive
The Teachers Pay Teachers (TpT) marketplace is a great place for standalone activities and curriculum resources perfect for middle school. The Budgeting Activity for Google Drive from Mr. and Mrs. Social Studies is designed explicitly for learners in grades 6-9.
This interactive activity teaches the importance of setting and sticking to a monthly budget focusing on significant expenses. You can use it in many classes in the business pathway, including personal financial literacy.
The project navigates students through five different aspects of their financial future:
- Career
- Apartment or Home
- Transportation
- Monthly Costs
- Spending and Saving
On the whole, the activity is intended to create realistic expectations of the costs involved in living and working so learners know how sticking to a budget keeps them on track to meet their financial goals.
When you purchase this project, you'll gain access to these instructional materials:
- Teacher Guide
- Editable Monthly Budget Slideshow
- Sample Apartments and Homes
- Budget Challenge Handouts
The budgeting activity integrates seamlessly with the Google suite of applications, so teachers can easily access and edit the resources in Google Docs and present the slideshow with Google Slides.
This project costs $6.00 and includes 27 pages of material. It’s a simple and straightforward budget project that educators who already use Google applications can use quickly. Since it covers only a few major expenses, it's ideal for younger students learning about budgeting and financial literacy for the first time.
NGPF Money Magic also includes a range of resources for educators, such as lesson plans, worksheets, and assessments. These resources are designed to support educators in effectively integrating personal finance education into their curriculum. The platform also offers professional development opportunities for educators to further enhance their knowledge and skills in teaching personal finance. Overall, NGPF Money Magic is a valuable tool for educators looking to improve the financial literacy of their students. By providing engaging and interactive activities, as well as comprehensive resources, the platform enables educators to make personal finance education both enjoyable and impactful for their students..
Reviews for "Cracking the Code of Financial Success with NGPF's Money Magic"
- John - 1 star - I really didn't like "Ngpf Money Magic". I found it to be poorly organized and lacking in valuable information. The overall content was confusing and did not provide any practical tips or strategies for managing money. I was expecting a helpful guide to financial planning, but this book fell short of my expectations. I would not recommend it to anyone looking for real advice on money management.
- Sarah - 2 stars - "Ngpf Money Magic" was a disappointment for me. The book seemed to focus more on showcasing success stories of individuals who became rich rather than providing useful and practical advice for the average reader. It felt more like a self-promotion tool for the author rather than a helpful guide for managing money effectively. I found the writing style to be dry and lacking in engaging content. Overall, I didn't find much value in this book.
- Michael - 2 stars - I was hoping to gain some insights into improving my financial situation from "Ngpf Money Magic", but unfortunately, it didn't deliver. The book seemed to oversimplify complex financial concepts and strategies, making it difficult to apply the information in real-life scenarios. Additionally, the examples and anecdotes provided were not relatable and seemed far-fetched. I felt like the book was more of a promotional tool for the author's personal brand rather than a genuine self-help resource. Overall, I was disappointed with the lack of practicality and depth in this book.
- Emily - 1 star - "Ngpf Money Magic" was a waste of my time and money. The content lacked substance and failed to provide any meaningful guidance on managing finances. The book seemed more like a collection of common sense tips rather than offering any unique or insightful strategies. I was looking for practical advice and tools to help me improve my financial situation, but this book fell short of my expectations. I would not recommend it to anyone seeking genuine financial guidance.