Take Charge Today has partnered with Intuit Education to create real-world simulations using Intuit's Mint and TurboTax. The Mint simulations are meant to be conclusion activities after teaching a Take Charge Today content lesson on the topics of saving, managing your money and credit, and can be done in 1 class period, or 30-60 minutes (except for Budgeting for Income and Expenses Simulation which can be 90-120 minutes). The TurboTax Simulation is an assessment option in the Paying Your Income Taxes lesson plan.
Mint Simulations
1. How to Prepare
Download this toolbox of resources:
- Section 1: Overview (instructor overview)
- Section 2: Orientation (instructions for logging in to Mint)
- Section 3: Activities (worksheets for students; these are also broken out below in step 4)
*For extra assistance, watch the Mint Simulation webinar!
2. Steps for logging in to Mint
Show students the How to Log In Video (2:48) or have them follow instructions in the Orientation file. In the "real world", Mint uses personal information, but these simulations use the information of a fictitious person named Isaiah, so participants will need to log in to Mint in a specific way. The setup only takes around 5 minutes, but that will be the only time participants will need to follow these login steps, as long as they write down their login information and use the same computer.
3. Introduction to Mint Simulation
Have participants do this opening activity to introduce them to Mint and the fictional user Isaiah before any of the other simulations. It is located in the Orientation file, the Activities file and can be downloaded below.
4. The Simulations
After following the above steps, there are several simulations to use after completing Take Charge lessons on the topics of saving, managing your money and credit.
*You must be logged in to access the following materials
*Created in collaboration with Take Charge Today, Intuit Education and Dave Cook, Illinois teacher.
TurboTax Simulation
Paying Your Income Taxes
There is a new TurboTax educational simulation, which allows students to practice filing their income taxes with fictional W-2's. It is the perfect pairing for Take Charge Today's updated Paying Your Income Taxes lesson plan and is an assessment option in the lesson.
| Intuit TurboTax Simulation Materials | |
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Additional Resources
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Helpful Videos: |
*For extra assistance, watch the TurboTax Simulation webinar
*Please note that the TurboTax simulation can only be saved mid-simlulation and returned to if working on the same computer.
