A Free Personal Finance Curriculum, Ready to Teach
A full semester of investing and personal finance, built around real market data and StockPilot Classroom. No textbook required, no cost, and grading runs itself off what students actually do in the app.
Who this is for
This is built for high school personal finance, economics, or business classes, and works just as well for an intro investing unit at the college level. It assumes no prior class time on the stock market and no math beyond basic percentages.
If your state now requires a personal finance course to graduate, or you're adding investing content to an existing economics or business class, this pacing guide is designed to drop straight into a standard semester.
12-Week Pacing Guide
Built for a semester that meets 3-5 times a week. Each week has a clear goal and a specific StockPilot Classroom feature that supports it. Compress to 8 weeks by combining Weeks 3-4 and Weeks 9-10 if your term is shorter.
WEEKS 1-2
Getting Started
Set up accounts, first trades, how the market actually works.
WEEKS 3-4
Reading the Market
Charts, sectors, diversification, the Daily Portfolio Puzzle.
WEEKS 5-6
The Fantasy Draft
Budget-based drafting, risk and diversification by feel.
WEEKS 7-8
Budgeting
Income, fixed costs, the savings rate, the Budget Workspace.
WEEKS 9-10
Risk & Volatility
Bull or Bear Streak, Market Crash Survival, real crash case studies.
WEEKS 11-12
Wrap-Up & Reflection
Final portfolio review, reflection writing, certificates.
Week-by-Week Lesson Plans
WEEK 1
What Is the Stock Market, Actually?
Goal: demystify what a share is and how prices move.
Do this in StockPilot Classroom:
- Create your class, share the join code, students sign in with $100,000 in virtual cash
- Post a Stream announcement with the plan for the week
- Assignment: "Make Your First Trade" (built-in trading assignment type, auto-graded)
- Class discussion: why did the stock you picked move today? Pull up a real chart together
WEEK 2
Risk and Reward
Goal: connect volatility to real emotional decision-making.
- Play Bull or Bear Streak as a class warm-up (5 minutes, real charts, guess up or down)
- Discuss: why is it harder to guess than it looks, even with real data in front of you?
- Assignment: make 5 trades across at least 2 different companies
WEEKS 3-4
Reading a Chart, Understanding Sectors
Goal: move from "guessing" to reasoning about a pick.
- Daily Portfolio Puzzle as a recurring warm-up, rank 5 real companies by year-to-date performance
- Introduce sectors: what industry is each company in, and why does that matter for risk?
- Assignment: a quiz built in the Assignments tab (multiple choice and fill-in-the-blank, auto-graded)
WEEKS 5-6
The Fantasy Draft
Goal: teach diversification and opportunity cost by feel, not lecture.
- Set up a Fantasy Draft in the Fantasy tab: a $100 budget, students draft a portfolio
- Standings score on diversification and alpha, not just raw return, so an all-in bet on one stock doesn't win
- Free agents and trades open a second week, so a draft-day mistake isn't final
- Discussion: who's leading, and why does spreading picks across sectors matter more than one big winner?
WEEKS 7-8
Building a Real Budget
Goal: apply the same thinking to personal cash flow.
- Students build a budget in the Budget Workspace: income, fixed bills, flexible spending, savings
- Assignment type "Budget Planner", students submit from the tool, teacher sees every submission in the Budgets tab
- Discussion: what's the difference between a 5% and a 20% savings rate over 10 years?
WEEKS 9-10
Crashes Are Real
Goal: make "the market can go down a lot" concrete, not abstract.
- Play Market Crash Survival, trade through a real historical crash period
- Stress test the class's Fantasy Draft rosters against a real crash (COVID 2020 or the 2022 bear market) right in the Fantasy tab, same picks, real historical data
- Discussion: whose roster held up best, and why?
WEEKS 11-12
Wrap-Up
Goal: reflect on the semester and close it out.
- Set a freeze date so portfolios lock automatically at semester end
- Export final grades in one click from the Assignments tab
- Students can download a completion certificate once the class freezes, a real record of the semester
What This Covers
This curriculum touches the core areas most state personal finance and financial literacy standards ask for: how markets work, risk and diversification, budgeting and saving, and the emotional side of financial decision-making. It's built to sit inside an existing economics, business, or personal finance course rather than replace your own standards mapping, check your state's specific framework (many now follow Jump$tart or a similar model) and adjust which weeks you emphasize.
How Grading Actually Works
Every trading and budgeting assignment grades itself off what a student has already done in the app the moment you look, nothing to check by hand. Quizzes score instantly. The only manual work is optional: written reflection or discussion comments, if you want to grade those yourself.
A teacher with more than one section can build a quiz or upload materials once, then copy it to every other period in two clicks, instead of rebuilding it five times.
Common Questions
Do students need to download anything?
No. It runs in a browser, works on school Chromebooks, and there's a mobile app too if students want to check in from home.
Is any real money or real bank data involved?
No, ever. Every dollar is virtual. See exactly what data is collected and how it's handled →
What if my term is shorter than 12 weeks?
Combine Weeks 3-4 and Weeks 9-10 to run this in 8 weeks without losing the core arc: trading basics, the fantasy draft, budgeting, and risk.
Can I use just part of this?
Yes. Some teachers only want the trading simulator for a two-week unit, others run the whole semester. Every piece works on its own.