News talked to several elementary school teachers about their strategies for teaching financial literacy to kids. With back-to-school season in full swing, U.S.

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During her 28 years of teaching, she used a program called the Stock Market Game, a virtual investing platform provided by the SIFMA Foundation, to teach students about investing by creating a hypothetical investment portfolio and following real stocks. 'Children tell me they speak in the evenings with their parents, and parents are listening to the kids when they're evaluating investments,' says Neme Alperstein, who recently retired from teaching the fifth grade in Queens, New York. In some cases, kids take their newfound money knowledge home and help school their parents. 'When kids know how money works, they are more careful with their spending and take better care of their things that cost money,' says Kristi Ekern, a fifth-grade teacher in the Denver metro area. But teachers who do cover financial concepts such as saving and investing find that students even as young as elementary school can grasp - and get excited about - money lessons. The Council for Economic Education's Survey of the States found that only 20 states require high school students to take an economics class to graduate and even fewer states require a course in financial literacy. Unfortunately for those kids whose parents can't or don't teach them money skills, these lessons aren't part of many school curricula. Junior Achievement's 2015 Teens and Personal Finance Survey sponsored by the Allstate Foundation found that millennial parents, ages 18-34, are the least confident about explaining money management to their kids, many of whom are currently in lower grades.

Some kids get money lessons at home, but many parents lack financial knowledge or confidence themselves. Millions of Americans don't understand the basics of budgeting or saving for the future.

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