A credit board game to teach credit reports, scores & cards
The Good Credit Game includes a credit board game as part of the larger credit curriculum kit. The credit board game, The Road to Good Credit, and the credit kit's other money games are designed to make it fun to learn about credit.
A credit board game for a credit class
The credit board game is usually used as the second part of a credit class. The Road to Good Credit follows 5 other hands-on credit games and activities. The credit board game and the other activities teach students about credit reports, credit scores and credit cards.
An educational credit board game
The credit board game part of The Good Credit Game is a mix of Trivial Pursuit and Chutes and Ladders. A teacher can choose which question cards to use, to emphasize harder or easier questions and to choose from the 39 different credit topics. Participants answer credit questions and then move their game piece. The credit board game underscores good financial behaviors. To be accessible to all audiences, the credit board game and its questions are all written at a fifth-grade reading level or below.
Using the credit board game
All of the activities in The Good Credit Game – including the credit board game – are meant to be done in small groups of 3-5 people. The small-group format makes credit classes more fun, collaborative and engaging. As with our Money Habitudes materials, we've seen how important it is for students in financial education classes to be able to laugh, smile, talk and be active – as opposed to just sitting in a class listening to a lecture or filling our worksheets.
Each participant gets to answer a question about credit. If you get the question correct, then you roll and move your piece that number of spaces on the board; that space may have another lesson or action step.
We advise allowing an hour to play the credit board game. It's appropriate for credit classes for adults and young adults (including college and military classes).
Customizing game play with the credit board game
The credit board game can be customized in a few different ways:
Choose to use or not use the yellow "discussion" cards. If participants land on a yellow square, they draw a special yellow card that starts s small group discussion about some aspect of credit or money management. Not using the discussion cards will speed up the game, but including them is another form of engagement and sharing.
Choose to only use basic questions. Each teaching kit comes with 200 questions. Of those, 80 questions are marked as "basic" questions. These are the most important aspects of credit reports, credit scores and credit cards. A financial educator can easily tell which these cards are because they're marked with a green icon on the back.
Choose to only use the more advanced questions. There are 120 of these in the credit board game. They're denoted by a red icon on each card.
Choose which topics to cover or highlight. You may choose to include all of the 39 credit topics, or to just focus on specific ones (like bankruptcy, credit inquiries, payment history, etc.). Each one of the game cards corresponds to a category; sort them in or out of the deck of cards you use in the credit board game.
Choose to make certain cards into "star cards." The Good Credit Game kit includes a sheet of red stars that you can put on specific cards that you want to call the whole class's attention to. When someone gets that card, you can have the whole class stop (cowbells are included for the purpose) and then you can teach a mini-lesson on it.
Let people just play the credit board game – or build in mini credit lessons. The teacher's guide includes mini lessons for tons of credit topics. They're pre-written and also include supplemental class activities.