What Investing Is

45-minute agenda

1. 0–5 min

   Warm-up

   Post: “You receive $1,000. You'll need $400 for a school trip in three months and won't need the rest for ten years. Where would you keep each part?”

   Teacher note: The trip money belongs in savings — it must be there in three months. The ten-year money can handle investment ups and downs.

2. 5–12 min

   Direct instruction

   Present the lesson slides. Make sure students leave with these points:

   • Saving = safe and slow. Investing = more growth potential, more risk.
   • Only invest money you won't need for several years.
   • Returns are never guaranteed.
   • Under 18? Custodial accounts are opened by a parent or guardian.

   Use the “See it” slide (Saving vs. investing) to make the idea visual.

3. 12–17 min

   Worked example

   Walk through “Two goals, two homes for the money” on the slides. Pause before the result and ask students to predict it.

4. 17–22 min

   Live demo

   Project what time can do from the slides or the Compound Growth Calculator. Change one input at a time and have students call out what they think will happen.

5. 22–32 min

   Where Should the Money Live?

   Format: pairs · 10 minutes

   1. Give pairs eight goal cards: prom in 4 months, a used car in 1 year, an emergency fund, college in 6 years, retirement in 45 years, a laptop in 6 months, a house down payment in 10 years, holiday gifts in 2 months.
   2. Pairs sort each goal into Savings or Investing and write the time horizon on the card.
   3. Pairs put the cards on a class timeline. Look for the pattern: where does the line between savings and investing fall?

   What to look for: Short-term goals (gifts, prom, laptop, car) and the emergency fund go in savings. Long-term goals (retirement, house in 10 years) can be invested. College in 6 years is a judgment call — a good discussion point.

6. 32–37 min

   Check for understanding

   Use the question slides — or run them as a Four Corners game. Answers:

   1. Where does that money most sensibly belong? — B. A savings account
   2. Investing can lose money, even when you pick well-known investments. — True
   3. What's the core tradeoff between saving and investing? — C. Investing offers the chance of higher long-term growth in exchange for more risk.
7. 37–42 min

   Discussion

   • Why do you think many people never start investing?
   • What's one goal in your life that's short-term, and one that's long-term?
8. 42–45 min

   Exit ticket

   Prompt: Give one reason investing can grow money more than saving, and one risk.

   Answer: Investments can earn higher returns over time; but their value can fall, and returns are never guaranteed.