Saving Success With Compound Interest Over Time 🎃
In this lesson, students participate in a simulation and use an online interest calculator to discover how compound interest grows savings dramatically over long periods of time — a foundational personal finance concept that middle schoolers can apply to real decisions right away.
What Students Do
Students work through a simulation that makes the math of compound interest visible and tangible, then use an online calculator to explore how time and rate affect savings growth. By the end of the lesson, students will be able to:
- Define principal, simple interest, and compound interest.
- Compare the effect of simple interest and compound interest on a savings deposit.
Get the Lesson
A full 60-minute lesson plan and accompanying slides, including the compound interest simulation, student materials, and teacher notes aligned to National Standards for Personal Finance Education: Saving.
Related Resources
Halloween-themed lessons
- An Economist Goes Trick-or-Treating
- Can Monsters Improve Your Standard of Living?
- Surviving a Zombie Scare One Effective Decision at a Time
- Halloween Innovation
Personal finance games