Description

The goals of the Cats Classroom Economy system are to teach students the skills they will need in the real world like managing money, budgeting, and being a responsible citizen. It also has the side-effect of managing your classroom in a fun way.

By purchasing this system, you will have everything you need to run the system, which requires your students to use real computation skills. This package has two sets of materials. One is in black and white, the other is in colour. Just print and cut out the pdfs. My kiddos loved doing this.

What’s inside my Cats Classroom Economy System?

Classroom Economy Manual – simple instructions you can print out as a booklet for each student or print each page as a single poster to pin to a display board, or just place it on Google Classroom where all can read it and no printing is needed. This is also the teacher’s guide but it is written simply for your students to follow. Read my article for more details here.
Cats Dollars -print as many as you like denominations from $1 to $1000.
8 Special Vouchers (freebie shop items you don’t have to pay for) – Each one displays a special item for sale, ie – 15 mins free time for $200 Cats Dollars, lunch with the teacher for $200 etc;
Bonus Cards – earn special bonuses ie: $100 for getting 100% for a difficult test.
Penalty Cards – lose cat dollars, for being disrespectful, fighting, swearing and so on but don’t overdo this. Try to keep the system positive.
My Bank Sheet – Print a class set, one sheet per student and place them in a ring binder. The banker uses these to record savings. When students want to save and not spend they give the Cats Dollars to the banker/s who record their transactions.
Note: I have also used this FREE digital online banking system instead of the ‘My Bank Sheet’ to record everything digitally and use the physical money to give that hands-on approach that my students love.
15 Job Cards – Just print and laminate these classroom economy job cards and hand them out to your students who can display them on their desks. (If laminated you could write their names on them).
Job Application list – As students’ job applications come in, record who applies for what on the job list sheet. This way, students who don’t get the job of their choice the first time around, can be hired in the next rotation.
Job Application – Print multiple copies and make them available for students to complete job applications, so they can earn classroom economy Cats Dollars. In my primary class students get paid every Friday but I only opened the shop once a fortnight.

How to use my Cats Classroom Economy System?

I used to keep the Cats Classroom Economy dollars in an index box. Later we kept the cash in a small lockable box, that the banker kept on their desk. I kept the key but it made the process faster. If you find there is something you need that’s not in this package please contact me and I will see if I can add it to this package.

This Cats Classroom Economy System requires each student in your class to apply for a job, be interviewed, and then do their chosen job. You don’t have to go through an interview process it can simply be by vote. Or use a Google Form with the ability to make three choices.

All my classes love to do the jobs and learn to become responsible students. I tend to let students keep the same positions for a term but I know others change students’ jobs every week. Your choice.

Train bankers to collect and record Cats Dollars. I usually get the students from another group to count and check so I don’t have to use my time up to get the class shop done.

Students are motivated to work hard on tests and schoolwork, complete daily jobs keeping the classroom organised, and get caught being kind – in order to receive Cats Dollars. Still, students can also lose Cats Dollars for unacceptable behaviour.

This system simplifies my classroom management system and students get super productive at getting more done in less time.