Lesson sheet · Module 1
History of money
The aim of the lesson
Money is a promise. Before you take, hold or give money — ask who is making the promise and what will happen if they do not keep it.
- 👧 Child: "Whose promise is it?" — Mum's, the bank's, the game's.
- 🧑 Teenager: before you buy crypto or "points" in a game — who issues them and can they switch them off?
- 🧔 Adult: how much of your money is a claim on one bank (over €100,000?), how much rests on one single promise.
Your step in Pecuvo: in "Net worth", split your accounts by who makes the promise: cash box (nobody — you hold it), bank (the bank + the guarantee), fund, crypto (who?). See how much depends on one promise.
The topic (chapters of the module)
- Chapter 1 · Before coins: debt and trust
- Chapter 2 · Things everybody wants
- Chapter 3 · The coin
- Chapter 4 · Paper
- Chapter 5 · Banks and banknotes
- Chapter 6 · The gold anchor
- Chapter 7 · 1971 — the anchor is lifted
- Chapter 8 · Plastic, screen, code
For the youngest · ages 6–7
🐣 The youngest: A long time ago people had no coins. They gave each other things and remembered who owed what. They wrote it down so they would not forget. Money is like a promise: "I will give it back to you." The coin in your hand is also a promise that everybody believes.
Play together (5 minutes): Swap toys without money: "the car for two books". Then give the toys a price in coins and try again. Ask your child which was easier and why.
A question for the evening: "If there were no money, what would you give for an apple?"
A game from the catalogue: RZ-02 "Market without money" — https://pecuvo.eu/igri/katalog/#rz-02 (in Bulgarian)
Questions for the class — 3 per level
- 👧 1. What did the scribe in Ur write on the tablet? 2. Why is salt not good money? 3. What does the stamp on the coin say?
- 🧑 1. Is there evidence of a society that lived on barter alone? 2. What happens when the issuer prints too many notes? 3. What changed on 15.08.1971?
- 🧔 1. How do commodity, backed and fiat money differ? 2. Why did Stockholms Banco fail? 3. Whose liability is the money in your bank account?
A 45-minute plan
- 5 min
- The question for the evening or one from “Check yourself” — what do the pupils think? No right or wrong answers.
- 15 min
- One or two chapters of the module at the level of the class (the “child · teenager · adult” buttons on the page).
- 10 min
- The game or the calculator for the topic — in pairs or on the board.
- 10 min
- The questions for the class. If you like, the open test — everyone writes down only their code.
- 5 min
- The iron principle in the pupils' own words and one small step for home.
Tools for the lesson
- The whole module on the website pecuvo.eu/en/modules/history-of-money/
- The open test (9 questions) — pupils write down only their code (e.g. K4B11), no names; the class distribution is shown on the same page pecuvo.eu/en/test/
- The Glossary — terms explained simply pecuvo.eu/en/glossary/