Knowing how to budget your money is important for your financial security, ensuring you can pay basic living expenses like food & clothing, rent or mortgage payments, transportation, tuition, insurance, and have money left for entertainment. Budgeting is a proactive approach to organizing your money.  Budgeting ensures you're not spending more than you're making, allowing you to plan for short- and long-term expenses AND help you make a plan to save for larger future purchases that support your lifestyle goals!  You simply want to be able to track your income left over after all expenses to ensure you're not falling into debt.

In case you aren’t familiar with the term, an entrepreneur is a person who organizes and operates their own business. In this lesson, you will identify the skills and characteristics that make entrepreneurs successful, investigate paths to becoming an entrepreneur (e.g. starting your own business, buying a franchise, etc.). You will also explore characteristics and skills that you’ve developed that demonstrate your entrepreneurial spirit!

In this Xello interactive lesson, you will identify the skills and characteristics that make entrepreneurs successful,  investigate paths to becoming an entrepreneur, and explore the benefits and challenges of  becoming an entrepreneur.

Even when you are doing a job which you don’t intend to stay in forever, you’re building your employability skills. Employability skills are those skills which are transferable to other careers and which may help you to advance in your career. These could be academic skills like communication and basic math skills, or they may be personal characteristics such as critical thinking skills, promptness, and adaptability. In this 8th grade Job Skills lesson, students will investigate the skills and personal characteristics which are transferable from one occupation to another.

Students will learn about careers and entrepreneurial businesses that exist within their own community by taking pictures and interviewing people working. This is a great way of creating career awareness or encouraging a more in-depth study of entrepreneurial careers. This can be used as a way for students to hone communication skills; become more familiar with different kinds of jobs, and expose them to a wealth of career possibilities. This activity can also be used to foster business/community partnerships. It can be used as a formative activity to prompt student motivation and interest, or as a summative assessment through which content is assessed for the inclusion of the targeted learning objectives.

This 7th grade Biases and Career Choices lesson leads students through a comparison of two careers in the Xello platform.

This 7th grade Jobs and Employers lesson leads students through an exploration of a company in the Inspire portion of the Xello platform.

Use the resources in this folder to conduct your own parent/student financial aid information session.

Webinar from the Association of Wisconsin School Administrators (AWSA), July 2023, outlining considerations for district administrators to consider regarding the teaching of potentially contentious topics. AWSA is joined by Bob Butler, the WASB Associate Executive Director, Attorney Malina Piontek, and Joe Donovan from Donovan Group.

This is a brief presentation that highlights self-advocacy for 9th graders, the grading process, and post-secondary educational institutions expectations of high school students.

This brief Powerpoint lesson explains the ACP process for students, preparation needed for student conferencing, the process for family involvement, and other related expectation.

This Growth Mindset lesson was taught to all students in preparation for their start of the ACP process. The results showed that over 50% of our students tend toward a fixed mindset in their self-perceptions. This is used as a planning tool for future learning activities. and to introduce the concept of a growth mindset.
Three Key Points:

We are not one or the other – it’s a spectrum and situational.
Everyone is born with a Growth Mindset and all the brain power they need to learn everything that is required of them and to get as good as they want on things they want to do.
We can change mindsets by changing our beliefs and focus.

Kindness in the Classroom is a multi-part video series designed to give educators insight into the positive impacts of teaching mindfulness. The series focuses on implementing the Kindness Curriculum; a free 24-lesson mindfulness guide designed for early learning classrooms, researched and developed by the Center for Healthy Minds at UW-Madison.

The Kindness Curriculum introduces techniques to help students self-regulate and improve peer relationships. Participation in the curriculum has been linked to academic achievement and increased performance in areas that predict future success.

The Kindness in the Classroom series provides insights from educators and a guided mindfulness exercise. On the project website, you can watch the series, download the Kindness Curriculum, view the learning standards met and explore research behind the curriculum.

This unit explores the role of the school management team (SMT) in managing a strategy for the school to identify and support vulnerable learners holistically. This strategy will involve teachers at the level of the classroom and will examine a simple system for referring vulnerable learners to the appropriate services for help.

Let’s Talk About Coping is an educational program developed by Wisconsin Health Literacy to help students learn about mental health and provide information on how healthy coping behaviors can reduce stress, depression, and other trauma related factors.This lesson plan highlights: difference between mental health and mental illness, why mental health is important, stigmas and myths of mental health, and coping strategies for mental health.

All students will need to ask for a reference or letter of recommendation in their future whether for a college application, scholarship application or future employment.  A comprehensive Academic and Career Planning Program teaches students how to make the ask.  Helping students prepare their references with letter of recommendation forms, current resume, and scholarship/job desciptions, will help them get their references prepared to provide relevant information.

The goal of using Naviance with 7th grade students is to encourage self-relianance and self-awareness as a result of the ACP process, this lesson’s objective is relevant to that end.

College and career fairs can be overwhelming and intimidating for students often leaving them with no idea what to ask while talking to representatives and recruiters. This activity engages students in the college and career fair experience allowing for a more meaningful experience. 

Students will be able to:

-Explain what is an elevator pitch and why it is important
-Discuss best practices throughout the entire application and interview process
-Demonstrate their skills in the areas of dress, elevator pitches, and job applications

Lesson Length: 60 mins

Students will be able to:

-Discuss different ways to prepare for a job interview
-Discuss best practices for a person’s first job interview
-Analyze popular interview questions

Lesson Length: 60 mins