Reality Town

Idea Sharing


Ideas for handing out Handbooks:

This works well if you are having students come to Reality Town when the bell rings for 2nd period and you have done the pre-simulation lesson the day before.

Set out the handbooks grouped by teach or alphabetically on a large table near the Savings and Loan business. Label the grouping of handbooks with signs above the tables, such as: Douglas ¯ 1st hour or A-D. Keep groupings small- no more than 30 hand books in a group. When students are called down to Reality Town they find their handbook and then go the Checking and Savings to set-up their checking account.

To save time you can eliminate the “Checking and Savings Business”.

As part of the pre-simulation lesson have students write in their “Household Monthly Income” in their Check Register. Handout the student checkbooks either in class or as the students enter the Reality Town simulation.

To help spread out the crowds at the Checking and Savings

Instead of just one large “Checking and Savings”, set-up four smaller “Checking and Savings”; one on each side of the gym. Then when students enter the gym you can direct them to the different “Checking and Savings”. You could also number the different “Checking and Savings” and then assign students by class to go a specific “Checking and Savings businesses”. Be sure that you have enough volunteers at each of the stations.


Pay Incentives

You can use pay incentives to reward students in the Reality Town Simulation.

  • Give students and additional $50.00-$100.00 in the Reality Town budget if they dress-up as their profession.
  • Give students a $100 Reality Town budget bonus if their parent volunteers to help at Reality Town.
  • Give students a $50-$100 bonus if a student is Bilingual.


Financial Counseling:

Talk with students that have the blue scenario where the spouse goes to school and works part-time, about the fact that it might be better to have the spouse stay home and take care of the children instead of working if they can’t afford child care. If you decide to do this subtract the $500.00 from the student’s Check Register and then only charge them for a date night out or eraned running for their child care needs.

If students run out of money one of the things that you can have the Financial Counseling Office do is for spouses that stay at home, have them start a home base business to make-up the difference in the budget if it is less than $800.00 a month. The Financial Counseling volunteer would need to determine how much money the student needs to finish making their purchases for the month. That amount would be what the stay at home spouse makes with their home business

Pre & Post Simulation:

If you have a smaller group of students (less than 200), you might want to put the students in the auditorium or large area and go through the Pre-Simulation Power Point with all the students at once. Be sure that you have other teachers in the room to help with questions and to keep students on task.

Do the “Debt Analysis” and “Savings Analysis” pages with students the day after the Reality Town activity or later that week. It is too much for the students to do on the same day as the Simulation. Some schools have the students complete these Analysis’ in their math classes. It is a good idea to do the wrap-up questions and discussion if possible right after the Simulation, when the activity is fresh on their minds.

801-824-REAL (7325) |  realitytown@msn.com