The Best Investment of All!

What a Month!

Well, we've certainly covered a lot of ground over the past 30 days during Financial Literacy Month, haven't we? From mutual funds and lemonade stand logistics to kick-starting your own start-up and investing in your favorite company, we've covered the four cornerstones of Financial Literacy in exciting, engaging, and easy-to-implement ways. From Personal Finance and Economics to Entrepreneurship and Investing, FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ is the groundbreaking Financial Literacy Program that empowers students BEFORE High School—to achieve their best success AFTER High School.

Ariel Education Initiative is founded upon the belief that Financial Literacy is a critical 21st-century skill and is vital to our kids, our society, and our future. That’s why AEI developed FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ and that is also why this program is 100% /free.

The goal of FUTURES is to provide a robust financial education program for kids—in school and beyond. Whether it be learning to invest in securities, such as stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, the fundamentals of becoming an entrepreneur or conducting a cost/benefit analysis or credit, this program offers learners the chance to shape their own point of view that will empower them to make wise money choices—long into their futures.

Beyond the Blog

These blog posts can only provide a glimpse of how FUTURES simplifies and deconstructs complicated, intricate Financial Literacy concepts to make them relevant and easier to understand for students. With the full FUTURES program at your fingertips, you can you’re your kids better understand the complicated world of finance AND develop their own personal stake in it. Created by teachers for teachers, this proven educational program is FREE and readily available to districts, schools, teachers, coaches, counselors, and families, too! 

FUTURES encourages kids to develop and form this own point of view of finance and investing, while honing their critical thinking skills as they progress through the depth and breadth of the four strands and 29 stand-alone sections of the program.  

Real-time, real-world connections drive kids’ interest and create effective links between academic content and the business world. This unique multi-disciplinary approach elevates learning, allowing educators, school districts, and families and community centers to help prepare tomorrow’s leaders—today—so they can compete in and become strong leaders of our ever-changing global marketplace—in their futures.

Four Cornerstones of Financial Literacy

The FUTURES™ program guides students from kindergarten through eighth grade, starting with a basic and progressing up to an advanced understanding of four main finance-related instructional content strands: Personal Finance, Economics, Entrepreneurship, and Investing.

Each section begins with a detailed ready-to-use planning guide and is brimming with handouts and resources—including engaging exercises, fun projectiles, easy-to-understand worksheets, and much more. Each section is divided into five color-coded sections scaling in difficulty, so that teachers, educators, and families can use their knowledge of the strengths and challenges their learners may face to adapt and modify each section to meet their specific learning styles, readiness, and needs. The stand-alone nature of each topic makes it easy to weave these important skills into any ongoing curriculum.

Personal Finance

Personal Finance is just that, it’s personal—and as a result, it’s valuable for everyone—kids, teachers, leaders, and families alike. With the help of the FUTURES™ program, kids can begin to more clearly define and understand a budget, the various categories within a budget, learn to create a budget, make budget adjustments, and apply this knowledge in memorable real-world settings. As kids create their own budgets after tracking expenses over time, learning the differences between a job and a career, a need and a want, and many other financial literacy nuances, budgeting becomes familiar and more infused into their learning strategies.

Like all four strands of FUTURES™, the Personal Finance strand is designed to help you “meet your kids where they are.” Each of the program’s 29 sections is organized around a Focus Question. For example, the Budget and Goal Setting section asks kids to consider the following: “When, how, and why is it beneficial to manage your money?” It's this kind of personalization that makes the learning process more relevant. It engages and involves the kids, inspiring them to really think about what they might do in a range of financial situations. These are just some of the strategies that help to makes FUTURES such a successful Financial Literacy program.

Economics

In the Economics strand of FUTURES™, a variety of section resources introduce kids to Economics concepts by incorporating fun activities and familiar real-world scenarios. Through leveled resources, kids learn the roles of consumers and producers, look at how money is used as a medium of exchange, and examine the trading process from various angles as well as gain an understanding of how goods and services are produced, consumed and exchanged. Kids even examine a city council budget, consider the fairness of a trade, and look at how advancements in musical technology, a highly popular topic, have impacted consumers.

It's through this guided, easy-to-access lesson plan approach that you can begin to coach your kids to expand their ideas about Personal Finance. This program helps to explain the larger role of Economics to everyone. They’ll build upon the base understanding from the Personal Finance strand, enlarging the scope of their financial literacy world by carefully explaining how businesses work within their own world and in the greater world view. Clarity about concepts like the flow of money and target markets are vital. These are defined in easy-to-understand language and through engaging worksheets, helping kids can begin to formulate a better understanding of just how much the economy impacts both their own lives and the world around them. 

Entrepreneurship

The program’s detailed Entrepreneurship strand covers more than just Entrepreneurship; it covers a wealth of powerful future-focused leadership concepts for kids. From business startup and financing, flow of money, public and private corporations, target markets and the always important social responsibility, kids are able to experience and visualize themselves as entrepreneurial leaders. After all, tomorrow isn’t that far away!

With the help of FUTURES helpful worksheets and games, kids can unlock a richer grasp of what it takes to start and run a business—and many kids discover their own entrepreneurial passions, able to shape these glimmers of passions into future ideas. Just checkout the FUTURES success stories in the Program Overview!

Kids will also explore the various parts of building and running a successful business, learn how a franchise works, discover the difference between investing in a startup business versus a franchise, and investing in a business and running that same business every single day (and night!). They will also learn how to make financing decisions and become worthy candidates for credit.

In this strand, kids consider various factors for starting a business and the importance of goal setting at the beginning stages of the business—and every single day thereafter.

The Entrepreneurship strand helps kids explore how they might want to run their own businesses one day—soon. The foundation from the previous two strands allows them to start to brainstorm how their own personal finances impact the bigger economy around them.

Many of these kids just might start their very own businesses—with this strong jumpstart from FUTURES—and you!

Investing—in Everyone’s Bigger Future

From stocks and bonds to low- and high-risk investments to mutual funds, the nuances of investing can be intricate; this is why the Investment strand is so important. In these stand-alone sections and lessons, kids define investing and learn why investing is a beneficial practice. Beginning to understand the process of choosing a stock includes reading financial information, researching simple information, and comparing the stock to its peers. With the help of FUTURES easy-to-do worksheets and hands-on learning strategies, kids and adults can wrap their heads around even complicated investing details.

Investing in one's future is a key part of life and starts long before adulthood and entering the workforce. This is why it's so important to help kids understand that Financial Literacy is a powerful tool, designed to help them begin to plan and invest in the bigger future they want for themselves.

Adaptable, Versatile, and FREE

FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ is a highly adaptable and agile financial literacy program that works well in schools, classrooms, clubs, community centers and even around the dinner table. Want your kids to know more and become well-versed on economic topics in fun and easy-to-infuse ways? Just download any/all sections that appeal and pick and choose activities that connect to everyday topics in your class, group, or household. You don’t need to be a seasoned teacher to effectively incorporate these ideas in conversations, fun family exchanges, and to generally raise awareness about the power of economics. Teaching your kids how to be financially literate is what FUTURES is all about. 

 It’s Never a Wrap

Thanks for checking out all 30 Financial Literacy posts in honor of Financial Literacy Month! For more information about FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™, this amazing (and FREE!) financial literacy program for students in kindergarten through eighth grade, or to download sections from the program, please click below.

Stay tuned for regular updates and Quick Refresher blog posts several times over the summer. While we won’t be posting every day, we’ll stay connected. The need for Financial Literacy never stops.

These 30 evergreen blog posts will remain up—and will remain relevant long after this Financial Literacy Month of April is over. Should you find yourself looking to connect financial literacy concepts to everything from curriculum themes to family life lessons, you’ll continue to be able to download and use this program with our compliments—any time, any place—to help your kids grow and flourish into Financially Literate Kids who become part of a Financially Literate Society.

All Together Now!

Now it’s time to bring it all together! It’s time to wrap up this month of activities to raise awareness that April is Financial Literacy Month with FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™.  This blog post is a true keeper. In this activity, we’ll weave together a clever combination of several of the posts we've shared during this month. By combining these activities to create a right-sized culminating project, we not only reinforce the Financial Literacy concepts we’ve covered, we’re also putting them together for practical use in a cohesive and memorable way for kids. “Wait? THIS is Financial Literacy? How is that possible? This stuff is fun!”

2 + 9 + 19 = FUN!

Kids will apply the budget-making skills introduced in post 2 with their knowledge of supply and demand that was covered in post 9, to test their entrepreneurial knowledge from designing a winning cereal box in post 19 to put together a fun and creative presentation to attract investors to invest in their business!  

If building a favorite cereal company seems too complex for younger kids, it’s easy to adapt this idea to ask “family investors” to invest in a lemonade stand instead. In both cases, begin by guiding kids to list what raw materials and funding they think they would need for their cereal company or lemonade stand. Once they sort through this past, it’s time to create and then make their pitch. 

A Quick Recap

First, have kids take a look back at blog post 2 and revisit how to put together a realistic budget. Kids can model their company budget on this post, determining how much money and what supplies they’ll need to launch their cereal business or lemonade stand. They can start with a checklist of needed supplies and expenses—everything from factory space to cereal boxes or lemons to paper cups—and research ballpark costs for each item to come up with a realistic total. Remind them that time is money, too. Ask them to consider how much work and labor it will take to deliver their company’s results.

Kids will take a cue from blog post 9 to determine pricing for their cereal or lemonade. Focus especially on the “Let’s Make a Deal” section. Then glance back at the weekend reading recommendations in post 20 and recall Pet and Cat’s lemonade stand pricing dilemma to inform their own pricing strategies.

Finally, dive back into blog post 19 for a recap of the basics of product design and marketing and some ideas to kickstart their own cereal brainstorming session. And then reread post 22 for a reminder of social responsibility and how business owners can balance the three Ps of people, planet and profit. Younger kids can focus on creating a sign and pricing strategy that is sure to sweeten their appeal.

Ready, Set, (Rehearse, Revise—and then) Present!

Now they need to put it all together in a compelling and convincing presentation. Suggest that kids make signs, share their budget worksheet, and even make a video to do their presentation. If relatives live elsewhere, kids can make their pitches using a mobile device.

Many older students are quite adept at using presentation software like PowerPoint, Keynote, Prezi and more. Pitches should answer the 5Ws and H: who, what, where, when, why and how. They should discuss competitor cereal products or similar lemonade stands they’ve encountered and explain why their product or approach is special, unique, will appeal to the market, and stand out. By asking kids, “What makes your cereal or lemonade stand better AND different?” you can encourage them to objectively consider and weigh the pros and cons of their idea.

Encourage kids to “teach you a thing or two” as they practice both their Financial Literacy skills and presentation skills. Make it polished and professional. One great way to help kids “see” how their presentation looks is to video a dry run. By hiding behind your phone, kids are bound to be more relaxed. They are also more likely to see where their pitch might need to be adjusted. Remind your kids that it is important to rehearse and revise their presentation before the big pitch. Then ready… set… PITCH!

Weekend Reading Becomes Great Any-Day Reads!

Because this feature was such a big hit over this past month, we're adapting it as we wrap up these 30 Financial Literacy posts to showcase Financial Literacy  Month. For our final reading recommendations, keep these delightful trade titles in mind as you spend time with your kids during transitions, commuting time, and other small pockets of reading opportunity.

Here are 4 different story books and chapter books about Financial Literacy. Check out the library or on Amazon for these titles and more—Financial Literacy stories help bring concepts home for kids in relatable ways.

What’s NEXT?

We're also adapting our Weekend “What If…?” feature to become "What NEXT?" Now that your future cereal or lemonade mogul has made a strong pitch, what steps would they need to take next if they were fortunate enough to secure funding? The cereal entrepreneurs can research how they would actually make their cereal—looking up how and where factories produce cereal, what volume of production they would need to be profitable, and examine test cases of actual cereal companies in the news. Lemonade stand operators can think about possible locations or events for their lemonade stand and start taking steps to put these actions into practice.

Visit Us One More Day in April

Check back tomorrow for the final day of Financial Literacy Month as we recap everything we covered this April and sum up what we’ve shared during this time about the importance of including Financial Literacy activities at home, at school, and on the go. Financial Literacy is part of everything we do, adds value, and helps us all to connect the dots between priorities, goals, and results.

FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ is an ideal FREE resource for students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Please click below to download any of the 29 sections of the program.

Your Turn: How to Help Yourself and Your Favorite Companies

How Would You Run Your Favorite Company?

 Wow! Time really has flown by this last Financial Literacy Month, hasn't it? It's already time for our last Weekend WHAT IF blog post! For our last big “WHAT IF” question, we're asking the kids to put themselves in the shoes of the investor by imagining they're investing their own money in the stock market to help their favorite companies grow bigger and bigger.

Weekend-What-Ifs are one of the best ways to engage kids to think about what they would do in a given investing, entrepreneurial, and financial literacy situation. This is crucial in getting the students to actually care about investing and helps them begin to grapple with their own personal philosophies in investing. In addition, by putting your kids in the visualization driver’s seat on a weekend, you are helping them to “see themselves” in their bigger future——now.

Opening your kids’ eyes to the fact that finance is a very real concept both now and in their will help kids to understand that the choices they make today and the things they are learning today will both help to shape their lives as they grow up. Helping kids figure out how to best navigate the vast world around them helps kids better relate the importance of financial literacy today and for many tomorrows. There’s no time like the present to begin or review these powerful life skills. This blog post with certainly help with that.

How to Begin

Use this graphic to show the big picture of investing. Keep it close by during the activity to refer back to it as needed.

Begin by asking kids what companies they like. Ask them why and what they think it would be like to invest in these companies. Help by choosing your favorite company too and going through this activity together. Remind kids that as a lead investor in one of your favorite companies, you’re actually a part-owner! Remember, a stock represents ownership in a company; if you buy a stock from a company, you are now part owner of this company.

Five to One Faves

Ask the kids to brainstorm what some of their favorite companies are; suggest they make a list of five faves and narrow down to one for this exercise. If they're having trouble thinking of some, help them think of some of their favorite products and toys and help them think about who is making them.

• Coffee cup and tennis shoes

• Do you love going to Starbucks and getting to choose your own Frappuccino? Maybe it's time to follow that sweet tooth and invest in the company that makes some of your favorite treats.

• Are you excited for the newest animated movie due to hit the streets soon? Maybe you should invest in your entertainment future and buy some stock in a major entertainment company.

• to follow that sweet tooth and invest in the company that makes some of your favorite treats.

• What about the new and hottest, most popular shoe company—ever? Maybe you should put your money where your favorite shoes take you.

Know Your Company

By encouraging kids to invest in companies they already support and like, they’ll learn a very valuable investing lesson: investors need to understand the company, its end users, the customer base, the market segments, and the company’s philosophies and priorities in order to be a savvy investor. What better way to learn than by experiencing the company first-hand (or first-foot) as a consumer?

It's Your Decision

It's important to stress that each kid can make a personal choice about their company—there’s no right or wrong choice for this exercise. Give kids ample time to think about their choices, favorites, and ultimate decision. Weave in a few future-based ideas and “what if” ideas by asking what kind of future they “see” for themselves. Ask them how they could potentially change their own future by investing in companies they believe in or in which they have a personal stake. In so doing, you're helping them discover and delve more deeply into their very own “Early Stage” Investment Philosophies.

Having an Investment Philosophy means that as an investor, you have a set of guiding principles that inform and shape your investment decision-making process. Summarize by underscoring that this same kind of decision-making that the kids just went through to arrive at the decision of what companies they wanted to invest in is the same kind of thinking any investor does. It's important to go through the different types of philosophies now and stress that there can be more than one that can influence why you might choose to invest in a company by buying stock.

• Some classic investing philosophies include:

• Value Philosophy

• Fundamental Philosophy

• Growth Philosophy

• Socially Responsible Philosophy

• Technical Philosophy

• Contrarian Philosophy 

Many Factors, Many Choices

An overall decision on why you might choose to invest in a company goes beyond your investing philosophies to encompass a multitude of factors. Ask kids to identify the most important factors that influenced their investment choices.

• Are they concerned about Global Warming or the future of the world? Then they might be a Socially Responsible investor.

• Did they have a favorite candy company that they want to see make bigger and better candies? They might be an investor with a keen eye for Growth.

• Did anyone invest in something that isn't doing well now? They might be a Contrarian investor.

It's great to clarify that there are many philosophies beyond the ones we've reviewed here.

The most important part of any investing philosophy is the person behind the decision:  YOU. It's all about what each investor wants to achieve and accomplish through their investment strategy.

What Kind of Future are You investing in?

Exercises like this that allow kids to imagine what they might like to do in the future is a key developmental strategy. It provides the foundation for focused goal-setting. FUTURES gives kids a solid framework within which to understand the complex world of investing. By providing many different exercises and opportunities for your kids to put themselves in that “future” world now helps jumpstart kids to develop their own investment philosophies, a key stepping stone to full financial literacy.

With the help of the Investing Strand and FUTURES, your kids will not only be able to understand the complicated world of stocks, they'll also begin to understand how they can start investing in their own future.

Visit Us Every Day in April

Check back tomorrow for our next financial literacy post. For more information about FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™, this amazing (and FREE!) financial literacy program for students in kindergarten through eighth grade, or to download sections from the program, please click below.

Weekend Reading—The Bridge of the Golden Wood

“‘What are you looking at?’ asked the boy. ‘Trouble and treasure,’ she said.’”

And so begins our final weekend reading recommendation for Financial Literacy Month with FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™. The Bridge of the Golden Wood: A Parable on How to Earn a Living by Karl Beckstrand, is an amazing story that uses the classic structure of a parable to tell a story about finding and making your own opportunities, something every financially-literate child and adult needs to remember! When we make our own opportunities, we can help ourselves to shape our biggest possible FUTURES!

In this story, a young boy encounters an old woman sitting by a stream who explains that a pile-up of branches in the water is blocking the fish from swimming past, and they’re getting hungry—that’s the “trouble” at the heart of the book. The boy uses his ingenuity to solve the problem of the fish and, along the way, develops a useful enterprise of his own.

Book 3 in the Careers for Kids Series, this illustrated folk tale teaches kids how to spot and take advantage of opportunities as they arise and transform their own skills and talents into lucrative activities.

Use the book as an inspiring springboard to help kids find their own “treasure”—of money-making opportunities. The award-winning author, Karl Beckstrand, is a former Silicon Valley recruiter, and the book includes ideas for jobs, money-making activities and online resources for managing money and finding customers. You can buy it here.

Finding Their Own Treasure

 How can kids find the hidden treasure in their own lives?

After reading the book, engage kids in a discussion about finding opportunities all around them:

• What have you noticed in your home, school, or community that needs work?

• How can you help?

• What special talents or skills do you have that would pair with a problem around you?

• How can you take that idea and turn it into treasure?

 Visit Us Every Day in April 

Tomorrow check back for another day of Financial Literacy Month for our final Weekend “What If…?”: What if you could invest in your favorite companies? Kids will learn how big businesses are run while taking part in some real-world “investing” of their own.

For more information about FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ for students in kindergarten through eighth grade or to download any of the 29 sections of the program, please click below.

Investing in One's Own Future: Financial Literacy and FUTURES

Investing isn't just for adults. Investing in one's future is a key part of life and starts long before someone becomes an adult or enters the workforce. This is why it's so important to help kids understand the complicated ways finance works in the world, and how with a little bit of thought and application starting now, they can begin to plan and invest in the bigger future they want for themselves.

Simplifying Complicated Investing Concepts
As we've seen over the last couple of blog posts, the fundamentals of investing come with a lot of complicated concepts. From stocks and bonds to low- and high-risk investments to mutual funds, it can be a little challenging for kids to grasp the concepts and to wrap their heads around the nuances of investing. What matters most is to help kids understand that investing can be such a beneficial process for their future. That's why we’re pulling the curtain back even more to showcase the power-packed Investing strand of the FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ program.

In these lessons, students learn to define not only what investing is, but how to understand the myriad complex investment opportunities that are available today. This is crucial engagement that helps kids to begin to develop their own point of view and awareness of the many different life factors that can so easily influence the value of various investment options such as stocks. Life factors also influence us, as investors, making it a good time or not-so-good time to take a risk or make a move. By teaching kids about investing, we’re underscoring vital life choices that kids will make as they move forward in school, their careers, and life itself. It’s always about choices.

This rich, scenario-packed program Investing strand is ideal for kids from grades K through 8—and beyond. These sections also make for a quick and easy review for grad students, MBAs, entrepreneurs, and anyone who’s curious about what it takes to successfully invest in one's own future. Financial education knowledge is key to planning a bigger future, increasing your financial literacy, and working to become a wise and seasoned investor. The detailed Investing strand covers a wealth of topics in this stand-alone section of the program:

• Fundamentals of Investing

• Stocks

• Mutual Funds

• Bonds

• Purchasing Investments

• Portfolio Managements

Through easy to understand, engaging lessons involving real-world scenarios, helpful worksheets, fun activities, and even some games and everyone who explores this strand will discover:

• how to define investing and learn why investing is a beneficial practice.

• how to determine what it costs to own a stock and how one might go about choosing a stock.

• More about mutual funds, it's advantages and disadvantages, and how to evaluate mutual funds as an investment option.

• the characteristics of a bond and what key information is need to evaluate a bond as an investment choice.

• how to plan to make their investments grow by learning to manage risk.

• the role of the stock market, the roles of financial advisors, how to make a self-directed investment purchase, and how to buy certain stocks directly from the company.

As with the other strands in this powerful financial literacy program, each section is organized around an engaging Focus Question and divided into five parts, providing a spiraled, progressive presentation of the topic. Five levels of instruction move from a basic to advanced understanding of topics concerning entrepreneurship, helping teachers “meet their students where they are.” Adult learners will also be able to learn from the ground up with this progressive instructional model.

Just check out a few of the sections to get a first-hand look at the wealth of information. The supplemental activities help all of us to apply our skills and talents from other experiences. Students can make cross-curricular connections with other subject areas, too—including math, art, writing, science, and social studies. 

No Such Thing As A Free Program?

Guess, again. During this Financial Literacy Month of April, we've shared a substantial preview of the informative worksheets and engaging exercises that make up the Investing strand from the FUTURES program. That said, nothing can compare to actually going through the whole program with your kids. That’s why this program is FREE. 

Investing is a substantial part of financial literacy and with the Investing Strand, kids have access to over 300 pages of easy-to-digest content and exercises to help expand their world view on stocks, mutual funds, risk and most importantly, themselves. From hard-to-understand key concepts and definition breakdowns to fun and memorable games that help bring out the FUNdamentals of investing, kids will begin to understand the trickier concepts involved with investing and will begin to develop their own personal investing philosophy. By allowing kids the time to think and respond to the worksheets, FUTURES helps promote an inspire kids to think for themselves and starts them off on the path to better understand the world around them.

Investing in YOUR Future

Not only does the Investing strand offer many stable stepping stones to help kids along the path of financial literacy and sound investing, it also provides kids with the necessary materials and examples to begin to engage in investing and to see the value of investing in their own future.

FUTURES Investing Strand helps kids understand that investing requires resources including time, money, and talent. FUTURES helps kids begin to self-actualize their own personal investment philosophy and provides them with a framework to understand complicated investing concepts.

Visit Us Every Day in April 

Check back tomorrow for our next financial literacy post. For more information about FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™, this amazing (and FREE!) financial literacy program for students in kindergarten through eighth grade, or to download sections from the program, please click below.

Stock Up on Stocks!

Now that kids are familiar with the basics of personal finance, economics, and entrepreneurship, it’s time to invest! Today we’re taking a page from the FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ program’s investment strand and teaching kids about stocks and investments. These topics might sound out of reach for younger—or even older—students, but after learning some key terms and the main decisions involved in investing, they’ll be thinking like future stock brokers in no time.

What’s It Called?

First, they’ll need to learn a few key terms:  

What is a stock?
A stock represents ownership in a company. A person who owns a share—called a shareholder—is allowed to vote on decisions made by the company.

What is a share?
Think about a pizza. The pizza represents a company. Each piece is a share of the company. Each piece of the pizza is an equal share.

What is a dividend?
A dividend is a sum of money paid periodically by a company to its shareholders out of its profits. A dividend is paid out periodically.

To Sell or Not to Sell?

 To sell or not to sell: this is the big question when it comes to investing. When a stock value goes up after the shareholders have purchased it, shareholders can choose to sell their stock and receive the money they earned. However, when stock is sold, shareholders are no longer part owners of the company and can’t earn any future dividends.

To Risk or Not to Risk?

Stocks are considered to be a risky investment. Unlike a bank that guarantees a particular rate of interest and can ensure that you won’t lose the money you deposit, while stocks can increase in vale after shareholders purchase shares, they can just as easily dramatically drop in value, too. This is why the stock market is considered to be more volatile and investment strategy. Even if an investor researches a company and feels confident about a decision to invest and buy shares in that business, the company might still do poorly and the investor can lose money.

This easy-to-follow downloadable flowchart will guide kids in making decisions about their stocks when the price of a share is up or down. Download it here.

Buy, Sell or Hold?

 Now kids will have the chance to make their own investment decisions! If you’re working with younger kids, help them to gather financial news stories about a publicly traded company with available stock. Older kids can research news stories on their own. Tech-minded kids might decide to research Apple, while kids into sports or fashion might dive deep into news about Nike. Encourage kids to think about products thy use every day. Clothing companies, foods they enjoy, and social media companies also are good directions for kids to explore.

Choose Two!

Once you and your kids settle on two top companies, share that the kids have a fixed amount of money to invest. (Consider an amount that is easy for kids to compute; a fixed dollar amount of $500 might let your kids purchase more stocks in one company than the other.)

Once your kids have made their “purchase,” have them consider the latest news about their company or suggest two or three possible scenarios, based on the current status of the company. If the company they’ve chosen happens not to be in the news at the moment, ask these “What IF” questions to propose some hypothetical scenarios that could prompt their buy, sell, and hold decision:

• What if the company loses a big deal?

• What if the company is coming out with a new product?

• What if the company just gave a lot of money to a worthy cause?

• What do these events tell you about the company?

• Will you continue to invest, sell your shares, or buy even more shares in the company?

It’s Decision Time

1. As they sort through available information and consider your questions, they should analyze the factors that are likely to affect the prices of the stocks and their decision to buy, sell, or hold.

2. Prompt them to review the flow chart above.

3. Finally, it’s decision time! Did your kids decide to buy, sell or hold their stocks in Company X?

4. Kids should be able to explain clearly why they made the decision they did, and back it up with information from the news and your scenarios.

Visit Us Every Day in April

 Tomorrow check back for another day of Financial Literacy Month as we explore the concept of mutual funds. Kids will learn what a fund manager does by creating their own blend of real—and tasty—trail mix.

For more information about FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ for students in kindergarten through eighth grade or to download any of the 29 sections of the program, please click below.

The Three Ps: Talking Social Responsibility

Who’s Responsible?

What responsibilities do people have toward one another—and toward the planet? Does this change when people are part of a corporation?

 We’re starting this next week of Financial Literacy Month with a discussion of social responsibility.

• What does it mean to be socially responsible, and why is this important?

• How can a for-profit company demonstrate social responsibility?

These are some of the types of questions kids will explore through a fun and focused activity from the FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ program, designed to help kids in grades K through 8 today to understand the importance of financial literacy to contribute as engaged and informed citizens in the future. Tomorrow’s leaders can even help to shape our society today. This game exposes kids to the big concepts that relate to social responsibility.

But Corporations Aren’t People, Are They?

First, ask kids to take a stab at defining social responsibility. Explain that it means that, as members of a society, people are responsible for the welfare of all citizens and we are also responsible for the health of the planet. When we apply this concept to business, it means much the same thing: corporations can and should find a balance between economic growth, or profit seeking, and responsibility to society and the environment.

This idea might sound very serious or hard to understand for younger students, but, when you connect it to what we expect the students in our classrooms and members of our families to do, there are many familiar undertones that helps to make this concept more relatable, even to younger learners. Social responsibility for corporations is about acting responsibly and making business decisions that don’t hurt people, animals, or the environment while still bringing in profits. It’s about striking a smart balance. Social responsibility for corporations doesn’t stop once the profits come in—that’s when the socially responsible work needs to keep going. Socially responsible companies and their leaders and entrepreneurs understand that it is through these profits that even more benefits can be realized. Profits can actually help corporations contribute more with, for, and to society by giving back, making differences, and adding value.

The 3 Ps

Socially responsible corporations focus on three Ps—people, planet, and profits. When a company takes care if its employees, community, and customers, it is focusing on people. A company takes care of the planet by being sensitive to how it manages its waste, air pollution, and safety practices. When a company conducts business in ways that care of people and the planet and also makes a business profit, the company is on its way to being a socially responsible company. What that company re-invests some of its business profit to help make the world a better place, the company is contributing as a socially responsible company in all 3 ways—people, planet, and profits.

Once kids understand a little more about corporate responsibility, they’ll have the chance to put these ideas into action through a creative business scenario. It’s time to create a corporate responsibility strategy focused on the three Ps: people, planet and profit.

If the Shoe Fits…

Imagine you’re the CEO of a new clothing and shoe company. Your task is to create a proposal for your employees and board members to vote on that demonstrates the three Ps—people, planet and profits. The proposal should address these points:

With your family or classroom, discuss the pros and cons of each proposal and then have everyone vote on the best proposal.

• What makes the winning proposal stand out?

• How does it successfully balance each of the three aspects of corporate responsibility?

• Can you envision an even better proposal with the best single idea from each “P” category (people, planet or profit)?

BONUS!

As a bonus activity, have students research socially minded businesses online and then determine if any of the companies’ approaches overlap with the proposals they created. What other ideas did the businesses implement?

Visit Us Every Day in April

Tomorrow we’ll continue our series of posts for Financial Literacy Month with information about investing. Kids will become familiar with the stock market and learn key terms while taking part in some hypothetical stock purchases.

For more information about FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ for students in kindergarten through eighth grade or to download any of the 29 sections of the program, please click below.

WHAT IF You Were in Charge of Your Own Company?

This Weekend WHAT IF blog post focuses on sparking the entrepreneurial interests of kids, offering up compelling “WHAT IF?” questions that puts kids at the helm of their own big business. Now that a springy holiday weekend is upon us, it’s an ideal time for some big-picture and even bigger-business thinking to take place for kids of all ages. In this blog post, we’ll help inspire kids to put themselves in the lead role of CEO—chief executive officer—of their own booming business or enterprise.  

What’s It All About?

It’s not enough for kids to imagine themselves in the “what if” role of the big boss. It’s critical that they also envision and understand the underlying “whats”, “whys”, and “hows” of their newly-created company.

Start by offering up that successful businesses provide solutions and solve problems for others, meet an expressed need, and/or respond to a new opportunity. Based on their specific interests, ask kids to begin to frame the purposes and intentions of their company. Use the PDF called Entrepreneurship to get the conversation started.

Examples and More Examples

Once kids are thinking ahead to running a big business in the future, it’s a great transition to the question, “What can you do today to get ready for these big goals of yours?” This kind of questioning helps kids realize that their big goals are much more achievable when today’s actions connect to them. Suggest some ideas for ways they can behave like an entrepreneur today. Using the 7 questions above, share the scenarios that follow.

• Ask kids to answer these questions about each one:

• Why are these individuals considered to be an entrepreneur?

• What questions did these entrepreneurs ask themselves before acting on these opportunities?

• Did this person make a profit?

• Tell kids that to figure out a profit, you use the following formula:

• Total Income - Total Costs = New Profit

Game On!

To solidify kids’ thinking, it is often helpful for them to transfer their thinking and learning into something concrete. In an actual business setting, these concrete tools typically take the forms of business plans, marketing decks, and organizational strategies. Instead of these traditional approaches, invite your kids to design a board game! Just follow these simple steps.

What Will Serve?

First, have kids brainstorm their idea for a business in the service industry. They might dream of operating a dog walking business, a hair salon, a construction company, a transportation business, or a landscaping service to name a few.

They should take some time to think about how their business would run—how it would make money, what kinds expenses there would be, how many employees they would need to have, how much they would need to charge, and so on. Kids can use the worksheet below for a one-page business plan to begin.

Time to Design

Then it’s time to design their board game based on this business. Use this template idea for a standard pathway board game or refer to the other board game layouts for ideas.

The objective of the game is to have players practice making business decisions throughout the game. The winner is the person who has the most profit at the end of the game.

Game Board Gotta-Haves

Designers should give their board games the following elements:

1. A catchy title related to the business. For example, a dog walking business owner might name her business Pampered Pups. A hair salon might be called A Cut Above. 

2. Instructions on how to play the game. Have kids be as specific as possible. The instructions should talk about how to move around on the board and when to pick up cards. Kids can model their own rules of Play after other popular board games, too.

3. At least 10 expense cards. Kids can create their expense cards using index cards or construction paper. Choose one color pen or stock for expenses. Expense cards represent things the business owner needs to pay for—such as the cost of buying and making the product, employee wages, taxes, and so on. In the examples above, a dog walking business owner might need to pay for employees to do the dog walking, dog treats, retractable leashes, and bags for doggie waste. A hair salon owner will need to rent or buy a salon space and pay all monthly utilities, install sinks and chairs, pay stylists, and buy shampoo, conditioner, and other supplies.

4. At least 10 revenue cards. Kids can create their revenue cards using index cards or construction paper. Choose a different color pen or stock for revenue so these look different than the expense cards. Revenue cards are the ways the business owner can make money. The dog walking business might sell day or week of dog walking subscriptions as well as at-home pet sitting services. The hair salon might offer special occasion hairstyles along with regular haircuts or have a weekly special called Thrifty Thursdays, for example.

5. Presentable board game format. Encourage kids to be as creative as possible, using color and pictures. If they need a little inspiration, check out classic board games such as Chutes and Ladders, Candyland, and Monopoly for more ideas.  

6. Game pieces to be used to move around the board. Ideally, the design of the pieces would go along with the theme—different dog breeds for the dog walking business, or hair stylists for the hair salon game. Kids can use bottle caps, paper clips or other classroom materials too. Each game piece should be easy to distinguish from the others.

7. And More. Kids can get creative and borrow pieces and parts from other games that may be available such as spinners, playing cards, dominoes, game pieces, checkers, and more. Just caution them to return what they borrow.

Now get playing! May the best business win.

Post-Game Wrap-Up 

After the game, launch into a discussion of why the game went the way it did. Why did each player win or lose? If this were a real business, what different steps could you take to be more profitable? How could you raise more revenue? How could you cut expenses? What future goals would you have for your business?

Visit Us Every Day in April

Check back tomorrow as we continue Financial Literacy Month with an activity geared toward the 3Ps—people, planet, and profit—as kids learn about the importance of social responsibility in business.

For more information about FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ for students in kindergarten through eighth grade or to download any of the 29 sections of the program, please click below.

Weekend Reading—The Startup Squad and Peg + Cat: The Lemonade Problem

Now that a busy holiday weekend is rolling around again, it’s a great time to have a reading selection at your fingertips. There’s nothing like a few quiet moments as a family or class to press that reset button before, during, or right after a busy festive celebration weekend. To be sure you have a right-sized option for your kids, we’ve got two choices for this big weekend and an extra one for weekends to come.

For the third Saturday of Financial Literacy Month with FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™, we’re sticking with the theme of entrepreneurship with a selection for middle grades and another for your younger budding entrepreneurs.

Want to spark curiosity and arouse your little one’s financial literacy, entrepreneurship, and leadership skills? Inspire your future entrepreneurs to follow their passions. Share a glimpse of the world of entrepreneurship with this great story about Jasmine. This easy-to-share book is a great business book to share with your kids to spark their growing interests in someday starting a business or launching a start-up. 
This kids’ first business book instills lessons about hard work, creativity and determination, coaching your young, upcoming CEO to acquire the right mindset needed to turn a dream or vision into reality. This story is a great way to pave the way for tomorrow’s blog past, too, where our Weekend What-If post showcases being the CEO of your own business!
In Jasmine Launches a Startup: (Entrepreneurship books for kids) written by Bachar Karroum and illustrated by Jesus Vazquez Prada, kids will be exposed to many of the same fundamentals of starting a business as are covered in FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ and provides a great glimpse into what it might be like to have an entrepreneurial career, including skills like: 

• Following your passion

• How to start-up and challenge the status quo

• Focusing on a specific market

• Taking risks, moving into action and seeking help when needed

• The importance of teamwork and never giving up

Eager to help sick children, Jasmine launches a business with her cousin to help the kids. They encounter lots of obstacles, which is a great lead in to a compelling conversation.

• Why do you think Jasmine started her business?

• How can a company be profitable and helpful?

• A social entrepreneur does both. Can you think of any companies that grow and help others?

• What about companies that recycle materials for their products?

• What about those who donate a product every time a customer buys one?

• What kinds of companies could you start to help others?

You can buy the book here.

Lemonade, Marbles, or Both?

Our second reading suggestion for this busy holiday weekend is well-suited to younger readers. In between holiday events, your littler kids can dive into Peg + Cat: The Lemonade Problem by Jennifer Oxley, ideal for a car ride or to keep kids busy at family celebrations. In this equally entrepreneurial story the beloved duo, Peg and Cat, decide to sell lemonade on a sunny day in exchange for marbles for Peg’s marble company. When life gives them a problem to solve, Peg and Cat make lemonade—and get a lesson in bartering in this flavorful entrepreneurial adventure.

In order to keep her marble company, Peg needs some marbles so she and Cat decide to sell their lemonade for the hefty price of ten marbles a cup. When they learn they've priced themselves out of the market, Peg and Cat keep changing their sign until they hit on a winning price point of two marbles that has the customers lining up. Like any business, though, another problem pops up: Peg and Cat forgot the cups! Can they barter their way back into business? How do they solve this problem? Buy this one here.

Car Ride “CAR-riculum”

If you’re taking a longer car ride, use this book to do a bit of learning along the way. This book is a great front-seat-to-back-seat read aloud. The e-book version is also a great way to read and ride by loading it onto your tablet in advance. Here are a few ways to maximize the drive time when you’re not the designated driver, of course.

• Prompt younger non-readers to look at the pictures to predict what might happen next. Do the same thing before swiping to the next page, too.

• Stop along the way during the story and ask your kids what they would do next, too.

• By putting themselves into Peg + Cat’s predicament, kids can practice some important problem-solving skills, even when all dressed up in their party clothes.

• Once you finish the story, give your kids the book and suggest that it is their turn to “read” it to you! Thy can point to the pictures and through the visual cues and their recall from your recent read-aloud, they’ll let you know they’ve grasped the plot and story line.

• Once you arrive at your destination, suggest they bring the book inside to read it to others. These rehearsed read-aloud stories can make for video-worthy family memories.

Both of these entrepreneurial books let kids explore ideas about competition, price setting, and supply and demand in fun and light-hearted manners that will certainly get them thinking like young entrepreneurs. We hope these two selections add to your festive or relaxing spring weekend activities.

Add This One to Your Reading List!

In addition, here’s another fabulous entrepreneurial story slated to hit the stores on or about May 6.

Girls mean business in this brand-new middle grade series about friendship and entrepreneurship in this middle-grade book The Startup Squad by Brian Weisfeld and Nicole C. Kear. It revolves around a sweet plot for budding entrepreneurs—a lemonade stand competition. The prize winner receives priority tickets to Adventure Central, and the book’s protagonist, Theresa, wants to win badly. But it won’t be easy, as her middle school nemesis Val proves to be fierce competition.  

Theresa also has to figure out how to work with her friends and perfect the formula for success. She learns that success is going to be harder than she thinks. With her three friends, this squad discovers that success means listening, teamwork, and the willingness to take a risk. They also learn that a team of new friends yields big results. Soon to be released, this chapter book makes a great read-aloud.

Weisfeld is not only the author but also Founder and Chief Squad Officer of The Startup Squad, an initiative that helps girls reach their potential by learning about entrepreneurship. Each book in the series features tips from The Startup Squad and a profile of an inspiring girl entrepreneur.

This series is a great way to begin an ongoing reading experience with your kids. In class or at home, this adventure can be a great end-of-day read-aloud or you might opt to have different groups read different books from this series. With any of these choices, the key is in the conversation that follows. In addition to strengthening the financial literacy awareness, this book is an ideal time to stress important social and emotional learning skills. Here are a few questions to take the discussion far beyond entrepreneurship and into the world of powerful friendships.

• As Theresa discovered, it can be difficult to work with friends. Have you ever had such a challenge?

• Can you think of anything else Theresa might have tried in order to make things easier with Val?

• While lemonade requires ingredients like lemons water and sugar, what are the necessary ingredients for a great friendship? (Prompt kids with these words, as needed: trust, loyalty, patience, understanding, listening, keeping a confidence.)

• Ask kids what they think this expression means and how it relates to them: When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When have you made lemonade from life’s lemons?

• Do you think businesses get lemons, too? What kinds of “business lemons” can you think of? (Remind kids about the melting ice cream, broken freezer, and new competitors from recent blog posts.)

Visit Us Every Day in April

Tune in tomorrow as we continue Financial Literacy Month with this week’s Weekend “What If…?”: What if you were in charge of your own company? In this upcoming post, kids will set up their own hypothetical business and explore key decisions just like business owners. It’s a fun and informative exploration for those business-minded babysitters and car washers you might know.

For more information about FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ for students in kindergarten through eighth grade or to download any of the 29 sections of the program, please click below.

Cereal Box Bonanza!

In today’s activity for Financial Literacy Month with FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™, kids will put their marketing skills to the test in a business arena they know well—breakfast cereal! Kids will create the concept for their brand of cereal and will learn what it means to compete for “shelf space” at the grocery store by designing an appealing cereal box that includes “out-of-the-box” thinking, and savvy marketing strategies.

You’ll introduce the concept that even building a better cereal with awesome packaging is not enough to guarantee customers will buy the product. It’s the winning combination of the right product reaching the right market in the right ways—at the right times—that helps one product to take off over another. Entrepreneurs need to grasp all of these factors and this activity is a fun way to expose future entrepreneurs to the fundamentals of product creation, development, design, and marketing—with a healthy product the reinforces the importance of beginning the day with a healthy breakfast.

First, your creative design teams will need to learn some basics about advertising. Explain that companies find out information about their potential customers in order to effectively market, or sell, products to them. Tell them to consider the following questions when designing their cereal box:

• Who is the target market?

• What are their demographics (age, gender, race, location, education, income, and so on)?

• What service or product is being sold?

• What are the top three things about this cereal?

• Why will the market like this?

• What other cereals make similar claims?

• While kids are the one who express the flavors they like, they are influencers, not the actual purchasers. How will the cereal and cereal box appeal to both kids and the adults making the actual purchasing decision?

• How will the design influence opinion of your target market about your service or product?

• How will the design separate this company from competition that sells something similar?

• What are the benefits of the product or service?

• How will the benefits appeal to the target market?

• What will your competition say about the cereal, the name, and the packaging?

While your product designers might opt to create their own cereal, name it, and then design a cereal box, others might have a tough time getting started. One way to inspire creative thinking is to offer up a few ready-to-go ideas and scenarios. To help your team begin, introduce the following four cereal scenarios. Remind all designers, even those creating their own new product, to get clear on the market for their product.

Rainbow Bears

The target customer for Rainbow Bears Cereal is a young girl who loves colorful marshmallows.

Sound Bites

The target customer for Sound Bites Cereal is the teenager who loves to download music. He or she doesn’t mind eating healthy cereal as long as it’s sweet.

Change-O-Bots

The target customer for Change-O-Bots is a young boy. The young boy plays with robot toys and likes nuts and oats.

Strong Heart, Strong Body

The target customer for Strong Heart Strong Body is a working adult who isn’t concerned with bright colors or a sweet flavor, as long as the cereal is healthy. This customer would appreciate a coupon for a discount on healthy goods.

Get Creative!

After kids brainstorm ideas, determine if it makes best sense in your particular setting for kids to design independently or to work in small groups. You might divide your students into groups or family members might launch a dining room table competition.

Each individual or team creates a cereal box design that will appeal to the target customer described in the selected scenario. Kids can draw on a piece of paper using markets, crayons, pens or whatever you have on hand. Or use a graphic design program on the computer to design the box. Download this cereal box template to get you started.

Once the cereal boxes are designed, ask kids to find two positive things about each one presented, you might opt to invite friends, neighbors, or other classes in to judge! Have fun with this—all you'll need to provide is the prize inside! Reviewers can vote on which design wins. The winning design should be BOTH visually appealing AND especially suitable for its target customer. Discuss what made the design work so well.

To wrap up this activity, ask your kids:

• What can you take away from this activity about what makes a product’s advertising successful? What type of cereal would you want to eat?

• How would you market that kind of cereal to a target customer like yourself?

Then, of course, you can end your competition presentation by serving bowls of cereal to all participants, judges, and contributors!

Visit Us Every Day in April

 Check back tomorrow as we continue Financial Literacy Month with this week’s Weekend Reading recommendations.

For more information about FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ for students in kindergarten through eighth grade or to download any of the 29 sections of the program, please click below.

Financial Literacy Means Big Business with FUTURES!

Now that kids have an idea of what it takes to be an entrepreneur, we’re pulling the curtain back even more to showcase the power-packed Entrepreneurship strand of the FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ program.

Entrepreneurship isn’t just for kids. Big or small, financial literacy knowledge is key and can be found in this stand-alone section of the program. The program’s detailed Entrepreneurship strand covers a wealth of topics:

• Business Operations

• Business Startup and Financing

• Flow of Money

• Entrepreneurship

• Public and Private Corporations

• Target Markets

• Social Responsibility

Through engaging lessons involving real-world scenarios, everyone who explores this strand  will discover how to:

• learn how to make financing decisions and become good candidates for credit

• trace the movement of money from the customer to a business

• learn how a company makes decisions about money it takes in

• explore the mindset and skill set of an entrepreneur

• learn the difference between a public and private corporation

• gain a basic understanding of marketing

• consider how companies can act as socially responsible organizations

As with the other strands, each section is organized around an engaging Focus Question and divided into five parts, providing a spiraled, progressive presentation of the topic. Five levels of instruction move from a basic to advanced understanding of topics concerning entrepreneurship, helping teachers “meet their students where they are.” Adult learners will be able to learn from the ground up with this progressive instructional model. Just check out a few of the sections to get a first-hand look at the wealth of information. The supplemental activities help all of us apply our skills and talents from other experiences. Students can make cross-curricular connections with other subject areas, too—including math, art, writing, science, and social studies.

For example, kids can compare the ways customers experience a small business versus a corporate franchise in an activity called “Awesome Family Cuts vs. Major Tom’s Hair Salon.” This is a profound comparison for all of us. In another activity, there’s a step-by-step support plan to write an executive summary and cover letter in order to obtain a hypothetical business loan—for some of us, that might not be hypothetical at all! In this strand, you’ll also discover a list of powerful new business ideas—from home day care to elder assistant and everything in between to inspire the entrepreneur in you and your kids! You’ll be able to evaluate the pros and cons and begin to do your own deeper research with this smart jump start.

Through these and dozens of other entertaining and educational exercises, you and your kids will learn what it takes to run and operate a business from start to finish, including on “those days.” It’s a lot easier to run a business on those days when it all goes well; the real test of smart entrepreneurs is being able to run a business wisely on those days where it seems that nothing is going well. True entrepreneurs actually learn more on these days!

Visit Us Every Day in April

Check in again tomorrow as we continue Financial Literacy Month with a fun and creative entrepreneurial project involving designing your own cereal box. While designed for students, any emerging marketer and designer will savor every morsel of this small group, family-sized, or individual serving of creativity. Check it out and use your creativity and business sense to compete for shelf space and win market share with your favorite breakfast food! Hungry for more? Stay tuned.

For more information about FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ for students in kindergarten through eighth grade or to download any of the 29 sections of the program, please click below.

Funnel It In, Funnel It Out

Today you’ll ask kids to put on their thinking caps—or hairnets—and step into the shoes of a concession stand worker or ice cream shop owner. 

For Day 17 of Financial Literacy Month, we’re taking a page from the FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ program and offering three fun and engaging, right-sized scenarios for your budding young entrepreneurs. Kids are often hungry for and with a sweet tooth for success.

A big part of financial literacy success starts with discovering your drive to accomplish a positive result—a great lesson and reminder for all of us. Success starts with an understanding, increased awareness, and of course, enough self-confidence to take a smart business risk—then the real work begins. By helping kids to think like future business owners, these business concepts and strategies will become more familiar to them.

Share the following prompts and tools with your kids and students to spark and tap into their potential entrepreneurial flair. In a family setting, share all three ideas and let the family choose one scenario to do together. In a class setting, break up into small groups and present the solutions, asking the other kids to serve as advisors.

Scenario 1: Concession Stand

Ask kids to create and figure out how they’d run a snack concession stand at school during basketball or football games. Customers will pay for snacks, but ask kids how they’ll decide what to charge, where they’ll get the snacks to sell, what kinds of supplies they’d need, and how much they’ll need to pay the people who work at the concession stand. Use the PDFs as worksheets to prompt the discussion.  

• What are some other expenses that might flow from this business?

• What needs to happen for the concession stand to stay in operation?

• What relationship should exist between revenue (the money coming in) and expenses (the money going on) for the business to succeed?

Scenario 2: Bake Shop

In this scenario, your “sweet-toothed” future entrepreneurs will open up a bake shop in your neighborhood called Flo’s Funnels, serving—what else? Funnel cakes, of course. Do some quick research with your kids to confirm the ingredients list for funnel cakes. To make the funnel cakes, Flo must buy flour, oil, and powdered sugar. Tell kids to create a shopping list with approximate prices to help Flo build her budget. Then talk about those famous words: location, location, location to delve into entrepreneurial topics like paying rent and employees’ wages, or earnings.

• What will Flo need in order to hire people to make the funnel cakes? What’s her payroll expense?

• Does she sell enough cakes to pay the rent, pay her staff, buy ingredients and keep her business going?

• Once you and the kids explore these topics, add this dose of reality to the scenario: tell kids that recently it seems that not many people have been buying funnel cakes—it’s time to figure out why and what to do in order to help Flo stay in business. What would your kids advise Flo to do to turn her business around?

Predict whether or not Flo’s will stay in business.

If you were in charge, what could you do to keep Flo business running?

Scenario 3: Ice Cream Shop

Present this final scenario to your kids:

After looking at both the concession stand and Flo’s Funnels, it’s time to tackle a business of your very own. You own and run your very own ice cream shop. Let’s assume you really know what you’re doing and your business is going really well. One big thing to keep in mind as an entrepreneur and business owner is that things can change very quickly in business. Entrepreneurs have to anticipate surprises and react in smart, thoughtful and strategic ways to business events. In this scenario, we’ll practice our entrepreneurial skills some surprising and “sticky” ice cream business scenarios. Predict how these each three events will affect your business, and how you would react to each one as the entrepreneur/owner of your ow ice cream shop:

1. The freezer breaks and all of your ice cream melts. What would you do?

2. Another ice cream shop opens in your town—just down the block. How would this change business? Is Competition good or bad? 

3. You just signed a really big contract to provide daily ice cream every day at 11:15 to the local high school for lunch—and it starts next week. What do you need to do be ready?

Think Like an Entrepreneur

Finally, ask kids what other scenarios might affect their small ice cream shop business. Encourage them to dream up even outlandish possibilities. Explain to kids that by generating ideas of what might go wrong and what to do, entrepreneurs can be better prepared when things do go wrong, which they will. Be sure to work through solutions for each scenario to help kids see that most business issues are fable to be fixed. This extension discussion is designed to help kids understand that some scenarios can be controlled and other events are beyond our control. It’s also important to tell kids that as an entrepreneur, you do NOT have to be able to DO it all; but you DO have to be the one who is willing to decide what should be done—and when. That’s the real cherry on top!

Keep in mind that the ice cream shop owner is probably not able to jump in and fix the broken freezer personally. That’s ok. In fact, that’s really not the entrepreneur’s job. Here’s what is: knowing that the next step is to call experts, get estimates, and hire an expert to fix the freezer quickly and correctly. That IS the entrepreneur’s job. It’s also important to think beyond the obvious: a smart, social entrepreneur thinks ahead to take all those the banana split bananas that will rot before the freezer is fixed right down to the local food pantry to help provide a nutritious donation to help others.

• As an entrepreneur, what factors can you control?

• What choices can you make to run a successful business?

• What would you do next?

• Who could help you?

• How can you turn a negative into a positive?

• What would you learn for next time?

Visit Us Every Day in April

Tune in tomorrow as we continue Financial Literacy Month with an overview of the Entrepreneurship stand of the FUTURES™ program.

For more information about FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ for students in kindergarten through eighth grade or to download any of the 29 sections of the program, please click below.

When All Cs are Terrific!—The 5 Cs of Credit

“Hey—can I borrow $30?”

How many times do families hear that kind of “Can I borrow. . .” question? Many of us feel it is too often. It’s easy to “tend to lend” even when we know our kids are less than dependable credit risks. In the real world, however, getting credit isn’t easy or casual; it’s an important financial literacy lesson and reminder for all of us.  

In today’s hectic world, it’s common to foster these “informal no-pay-back loans” for lots of reasons. As those in charge of classrooms and families, however, we need to help prepare our kids to be able to secure credit in the real world—by helping them to understand and form better borrowing habits today. Certain characteristics make you a desirable candidate for a loan and even then, there are many hurdles. 

On Day 16 of Financial Literacy Month with FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™, we’re talking credit—apart to explain it to kids in easy-to-grasp ways. By explaining to kids that credit is money you borrow from a bank or another similar institution, with a promise to pay it back later, we are beginning to distinguish between the formal criteria for borrowing from an institution and casual family-based loans. With the former, repayment includes interest, or fees on top of the original amount borrowed.

Most people with a mortgage on a home—which is a kind of credit—pay interest on top of the regular loan for a period of 30 or 15 years, or however long they decided when they signed the papers. Credit cards also charge fees when you have a balance, or don’t pay the full amount you charged each month. Sometimes people put too much money on credit cards—or get into debt in other ways—and have trouble paying them back. Understanding how credit works can help you avoid getting into difficult situations.

There’s also something called a credit score that determines how attractive a person comes across as a potential borrower. You don’t have to have the best possible score to get a loan, but it helps to have good credit.

The 5 Cs of Credit

Entrepreneurs often need credit to start their businesses. A bank weighs each factor to determine if it will give a loan to a potential business owner. Here are the 5Cs a loaning institution considers before agreeing to give a person or new business credit:

• Capacity: Measures a borrower’s ability to repay a loan by comparing income to recurring debts.

• Capital: Refers to a borrower’s reputation or track record for repaying debts. This is sometimes referred to as credit history.

• Character: Any funds the borrower puts toward the potential investment.

• Collateral: Any property or other asset that a borrow offers as a way to secure a loan. If the borrower shops the promised loan payments, the lender can seize the collateral as payment.

• Conditions: The conditions of a loan, such as its interest rate and amount of principal, influence a lender’s decision to make a loan to the borrower.

 Play the Credit Qualifying Game!

This entrepreneurial activity might completely overhaul the next “Can I borrow $30?” discussion in your home or serve as a strong role-play activity in school. Kids of all ages can play this game—pair the youngest kids with the oldest if they need help participating.

Consider the following 15 scenarios in terms of the 5Cs of Credit: Capacity, Capital, Character, Collateral, and Conditions. Think of it like a matching or memory game.

For a bonus, choose any three or four scenarios randomly, and then have kids decide whether they would give a candidate with those characteristics a loan if they were a bank or lending institution. Kids can even role play, applicant, lender, and entrepreneur to underscore the scenarios.

Visit Us Every Day in April

Check back tomorrow as we continue Financial Literacy Month with a post on revenue and cash flow that uses some mouth-watering examples.

For more information about FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ for students in kindergarten through eighth grade or to download any of the 29 sections of the program, please click below.

The Outcomes of Income Tax!

Happy TAX DAY!

Today, in honor of the 15th day of Financial Literacy Month, which falls on tax day, FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ is focused on helping kids understand what taxes are and how they benefit the community. While you might be grumbling about your own debt to Uncle Sam, this is a great opportunity to introduce kids to the ins and outs of income tax.

A lot of kids probably don’t know much about taxes beyond hearing adults joke or complain about them. But that ignores the many important benefits of taxes. First, explain to kids that taxes are fees that a government entity collects from individuals or companies in order to fund public works and services. (Source: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/taxes.asp) Some types of taxes are:

• income tax - a tax on a person’s earnings

• corporate tax – a tax on a company’s profits collected by the government

• sales tax - a tax on goods and services

• property tax – a tax on the value of land and property

• estate tax – a tax on property and assets upon a person’s death

• tariff – a tax on imported goods

Explain to kids that if they have probably paid taxes themselves in the form of sales tax if they’ve ever bought candy or a new toy at the store. Tell them that taxes help us pay for many important things, including public schools, roads, bridges, playgrounds, national parks, and other services that benefit everyone in a community. Taxes also pay for the military, police, fire fighters, and other services and agencies that work to protect us. Without taxes, the government could not run.

Prompt a discussion by asking kids: What else can you think of that is paid for by taxes?

Six Tax Facts!

Share a few of these quick tax facts during class or at the dinner table and you’ll come across as quite knowledgeable when it comes to taxes.

1. When someone receives a paycheck, a certain percentage is taken out (or deducted) and given to the government in the form of state and federal taxes. The percentage depending on how much money you earn and where you live.

2. Some states like Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, and Pennsylvania have a flat income tax. With a flat income tax, everyone pays the same percent of their income.

3. Other states have a progressive tax. From A to Z, Alabama and California to West Virginia and Wisconsin, most states have a progressive income tax. With a progressive income tax, the percentage people pay depends on how much money they make.

4. The United States federal income taxes are another example of progressive taxes, based on income.

5. State income taxes are determined at a state level. Did you know that seven states have no state income tax? That’s right: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming have no state income tax.

6. Sales tax is a tax that states charge on certain items and this varies from state to state. For example, there is no tax on clothing in Pennsylvania. Several states—Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Oregon—don’t have state sales taxes (Source: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/taxes.asp) at all. Each state determines the amount of its sales tax and decides what items are taxed and what items are not taxed. Most often, items considered to be luxury items are the first to be taxed.

 Getting Kids “on Board!”

Board games are a great way for kids to “experience” life events like taxes, with only minimal consequences. In the board game Monopoly, for example, a player who lands on the Income Tax square has to cough up $200 or 10% of whatever she’s accumulated in the game so far. The player has to make her decision before adding up her assets, so it pays—literally—to have a good idea of how much you have before landing on that square.

Life isn’t exactly a game of Monopoly, but it’s a good idea to keep a very close eye on what you make and spend in the real world as well. If you have the board game on hand at home or at school, it’s a great opportunity to break it out for a game—and some very teachable moments. Speaking of life, another great game is called The Game of LIFE. Both games are available on Amazon and can likely be found at a local community center or library. These games will help kids grasp the real-world nature of taxes and life’s financial surprises.

Tax Your Kids?!

One of the clearest ways to drive home the point and benefit of taxes and to demonstrate the positive effect taxes are designed to provide is by setting aside a small percentage of your kids’ stash—of some prized possession or collection—for the “greater good.” This model works equally well in a classroom setting, for the greater good of the entire class. Students can contribute some of their individually-earned points or pompoms in a class Bravo Jar to collectively garner a whole-class field trip, for example.

Income

Tax Percentage

With younger children, you might choose to collect a “family fun tax” of a portion of their candy stash to show them how taxes can work. Or, with older children who earn their own money through a babysitting job or allowance, you can set aside a certain percentage for a week or more to go toward household upkeep or to pop for that movie rental everyone’s been talking about. Everyone in the family should contribute to the collection. Explore the differences and percentages. No matter how you choose to do this, be sure your kids are in an appropriately scaled and easily attainable “tax bracket” that aligns to the example.

If this process works well, kick it up a notch and inspire older kids to set aside a smaller percentage of their earnings for a set period of time as a tax-planning reserve to help them to understand how many adults plan, save, and budget for taxes all during the year. 

Whether you keep the “taxes” you collect or give it right back to your kids in the form of cash, candy, pizza, or a movie, this process really helps kids understand how—and why—taxes are designed to work.

For more information about FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ for students in kindergarten through eighth grade or to download any of the 29 sections of the program, please click below.

Weekend What If: What If… You Were in Charge of the U.S. Mint?

It's Sunday, which means one thing—it’s time once again for some very big-picture thinking again! On Day 14 of Financial Literacy Month, FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ introduces a new round of “What if…?” This time kids will imagine they are in charge of the U. S. Mint and have many decisions to make, including designing and making money.

 You’re the Boss!

Explain to kids that today, they are going to picture themselves in charge of the biggest “money maker” we know of—The U. S. Mint. “What If You Were in Charge of the U.S. Mint?” is the leading question for this fun-filled discussion.

What do you think the person in charge of the U. S. Mint does all day?

What kids of decisions does this money boss have to make?

What happens to money once it is printed?

What could cause the Mint to run out of money?

Why is some money made of paper and other money is made of metal?

What kinds of questions would you have if you were in charge of the U. S. Mint?

 Describe It!

Older kids can actually create a simple job description for their job for the day. What kinds of education might be needed. This is a good way to c those word problems of today to a big future career.

Younger kids might not be ready for such a big description so focus on the details of designing money. Remind kids about the special characteristics of American paper currency—all the design features that make a bill unique, such as the serial number, Federal Reserve number and seal, the face of the president on the bill, the Department of Treasury seal, and so on. For an in-depth refresher, they can visit the blog post about the five-dollar bill.

Design It to Spend it—and Protect It!

All kids can step into the role of currency designer at the U.S. Treasury’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Tell kids it’s their task to come up with a new bill. They should choose whatever denomination they would like—whether one that already exists, like the five- or twenty-dollar bill, or a new bill, like a seven-dollar bill. Stress that making change is trickier, though, with such denominations.

 Kids can even come up with a new name for their currency—for example, animal lovers might dream up “Zoobucks” with a specific animal on each denomination. Kids can then draw and label their designs with an explanation for each feature on the bill.

Video Inspiration

Kids stumped or not feeling those creative juices flowing? This fun video might help. The U.S. Currency Education Program video looks at the special features of U.S. currency by comparing them to five unusual creatures. What does a twenty-dollar bill have in common with an armadillo, for example? Nope, not its color. Like an armadillo’s bumpy exterior, U.S. paper currency has a distinctive rough texture. What other unexpected comparisons will you discover? This video can help guide kids in creating their new currency.

Visit Us Every Day in April 

Tune in again tomorrow as we continue Financial Literacy Month post on personal finance and economics in honor of tax day.  

For more information about FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ for students in kindergarten through eighth grade or to download any of the 29 sections of the program, please click below.

Weekend Reading—It's Not Fair and Everything Money

When it comes to money, how much is enough? And when does it pay—or cost you too much—to be generous? 

This weekend’s Weekend Reading book recommendations for Financial Literacy Month build on the previous lessons from FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ about personal finance and economics. Even if you’ve not been following the blog in an in-depth manner, this activity still works like a charm to inspire young and middle-school aged readers to “get” the economics and personal finance concepts of money management, planning, sharing, and coping in a real world.

Especially appropriate for younger students, It’s Not Fair!: A Book About Having Enough by Caryn Rivadeneira, explores a young girl’s experience with money management and sharing. After much saving and planning, Roxy has finally saved enough money to buy a chemistry set, and heads off to the store to make her big purchase. On her way to the store Roxy encounters a series of friends in trouble who need her help. Each time that Roxy decides instead to dip into her savings to help her friends, she continues to wonder if she will have enough money left over to buy the chemistry set she so badly wants. To see what happens, read this compelling and memorable story.

The book encourages kids to think about money and personal finance while exploring themes of friendship, generosity, and what it means to truly have enough.

Why not extend the conversation after finishing the story? Ask kids these questions to get them thinking about the big-picture issues the book taps into:

• What does Roxy’s adventure make you think about saving money?

• What do you think it mean to be generous with your money?

• Do you think it is possible to ever be too generous?

• What can happen when you’re not generous enough?

• How do we balance our financial needs with other people’s?

• What do you think it mean to have “enough” money?

Older children can examine these same topics from a nonfiction perspective with the book National Geographic Kids Everything Money: A wealth of facts, photos, and fun! by Kathy Furgang. The engaging, fact-filled book contains a ton of information and activities about money, from a timeline on how much has changed over time to “Explorer’s Corner” features on different types of money around the world. This book makes a great addition to any class or home library to showcase financial literacy facts about money.

Visit Us Every Day in April

Tune in again tomorrow as we continue Financial Literacy Month with our weekend feature “What If…” exploration that helps kids to “see” themselves is powerful positions In this weekend’s post, kids will put themselves in a key role. What if you were in charge of the U.S. Mint? is a Weekend What-If Feature that lets kids will use their knowledge of how the Bureau of Engraving and Printing designs and makes money and culminates in kids designing their very own bill!

For more information about FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ for students in kindergarten through eighth grade or to download any of the 29 sections of the program, please click below.

Little Pigs, Big Resources

I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll… teach you about resources?

Any preschooler can probably recite the story of the three little pigs. But what may not be readily apparent to any of us is that this powerful little story is also a “teaching” fairy tale as it actually provides a perfect illustration of the four types of economic resources that are critical to anyone who is seeking to learn more about financially literacy.

Continuing our focus on economics this week of Financial Literacy Month with FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™, let’s look at the role of resources in this classic story. What resources did the little pigs use? What resource—or resources—enabled them to build a bigger, stronger, and safer home?

First, as a family or class, briefly recap the story of the three little pigs. If you need a refresher, you can find a good version here.

Next, draw on the board—or designate the best artist in the family to draw on a piece of paper or on a write-on, wipe-off board—each of the following elements of the story:

The characters: three little pigs, big bad wolf

The houses: straw, wood, and brick

The destruction of the houses: Illustrate the destruction by scribbling on the homes as the wolf destroys them.

A Lesson in Being Resource-FULL

To get kids thinking about the types of resources in the tale, ask the following questions:

• Where does the straw or wood come from?

• Who harvests the straw or wood?

• How does the farmer or lumberjack gather/deliver the straw/wood?

• Who is going to build the houses?

• What tools will they use?

Finally, work together with kids to make a simple chart and group each answer into the correct category: capital resource, human resource, natural resource, or productive resource. Encourage them to list any additional resources they can think of related to the story.

What resource or resources ended up being most important?

Kids will probably answer “bricks,” which is both a natural resource and an intermediate good. But an even better answer might be a human resource—in the form of the third pig, who used his ingenuity to determine the strongest building material to keep out the big bad wolf.

What Can Your Kids Build?

Take this economic exercise further by “building upon” the concepts from Three Little Pigs. Ask kids to think about something they’d like to build and then explore different resources and materials to ensure the structure is solid. A few ideas might be a club house, tree house, puppet show stage, or even a fort in the basement. 

Visit Us Every Day in April

Tomorrow we’ll continue Financial Literacy Month with our next Weekend Reading book recommendation. This time we’ll look at It's Not Fair by Caryn Rivadeneira, which explores ideas about generosity and how much money is enough. And we’ll offer another fun suggestion for older readers. Be sure to carve out. Bit of time this weekend or as a warm-up to the week next Monday by checking out tomorrow’s blog post.

For more information about FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ for students in kindergarten through eighth grade or to download any of the 29 sections of the program, please click below.

Bigger FUTURES! Overview of the Economics Strand

In this post for Financial Literacy Month, we’ll take a look at the second of the four FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ strands—economics. What better way to help kids learn to better handle and manage money than by understanding how the system behind it works?

Easy-to-Grasp Economics, Anyone?

This program’s in-depth Economics strand covers a wealth of topics:

• Consumers and Producers

• Currency and Federal Reserve

• Goods and Services

• Scarcity

• Opportunity Cost

• Federal Government Taxes and Role of Government

• Productive Resources

• Specialization and Division of Labor

In this part of the program, a variety of section resources introduce kids to economics concepts using fun activities and familiar real-world scenarios. For example, students can examine a city council budget, consider the fairness of a trade, or look at how advancements in musical technology have impacted consumers.

Through leveled resources, students will learn the roles of consumers and producers, look at how money is used as a medium of exchange, and examine the trading process from various angles as well as gain an understanding of how goods and services are produced, consumed and exchanged.

Let’s Get Focused

As with the other strands, each section is organized around an engaging Focus Question and divided into five parts, providing a spiraled, progressive presentation of the topic. Five levels of instruction move from a basic to advanced understanding of economics topics, helping teachers “meet their students where they are.” And supplemental activities help students make cross-curricular connections with other subject areas—including math, art, writing, science, and social studies.

In and Out of the Classroom

FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ is a highly adaptable and agile financial literacy program that works well in schools, classrooms, clubs, community centers and even around the dinner table. Want your kids to know more and become well-versed on economic topics in fun and easy-to-infuse ways? Just download any/all sections that appeal and pick and choose activities that connect to everyday topics in your class, group, or household. You don’t need to be a seasoned teacher to effectively incorporate these ideas in conversations, fun family exchanges, and to generally raise awareness about the power of economics.

Visit Us Every Day in April

Check back tomorrow on Day 12 of Financial Literacy Month as we look at a fun and familiar example of the four types of economic resources as we look “behind the bricks” in the classic story of The Three Little Pigs. We’ll help kids learn how to consider which resource was most important in building a strong and safe, wolf-resistant house.

For more information about FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ for students in kindergarten through eighth grade or to download any of the 29 sections of the program, please click below.

How Resource-FULL is your sandwich?

What do you need to make a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich? Most people would probably answer “Bread, peanut butter, and jelly.” Right? Well, if you’re economist—or learning to think like one—it’s a little more complicated than that.

On Day 10 of Financial Literacy Month, kids will learn to think like budding economists with help from FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™. You can use the familiar scenario of making PB&J sandwich to explain the many types of resources that go into making one simple sandwich.

First, ask kids to think about the TYPES of ingredients or resources that it takes to make even a simple sandwich. Explain that ingredients are actually resources and that there are lots of different types.

• Natural resources are materials or substances that come from nature, in this case peanuts, wheat, and fruits.

• Human resources are all the people who make a good or product, in this case, the sandwich maker as well as those who harvest the ingredients.

It gets even “stickier” as you delve into the ideas of capital resources and intermediate goods are goods produced and used to make other goods and services. There is an important difference between the two: Intermediate goods are used up in the process of producing something—for example, in bread making, flour is an intermediate good because you can only use it to make one loaf of bread. Capital resources can be used over and over—using the bread making example again, an electric mixer with a dough hook is a capital resource because you can use it again and again to make many loaves of bread.

Let’s Get Cooking!

Once you explain these four types of resources, it’s easy to apply these ideas to the PB&J example and have kids figure out what you’ll need in each resource category to make the sandwich:

Natural Resources:

• Wheat – to make bread

• Peanuts and oil to make peanut butter

• Fruit and sugar to make jelly

Human Resources:

• Sandwich maker

• Parent, student, or teacher

Capital Resources:

• Tools or machines used in production

• Examples: knife, jar, plate, spoon

Intermediate Goods:

• Goods that are used up during production

• Examples: peanut butter, bread, jelly

Break It Down

Now have kids complete their own lists of resources for another familiar scenario, such as making a pizza, selling Girl Scout cookies, putting on a show, or forming a soccer team. Tell them to be sure to break down natural resources into their simplest forms.

For example, a soccer team needs natural resources in the form of green space or a field on which to play and rubber (and other materials) to make the soccer ball, human resources in terms of a coach, team members, and even spectators, capital resources in terms of a factory to make the uniforms and soccer ball, and intermediate goods such as snacks and hydrating drinks for during and after practice, but in the case of a soccer game, these are really “full-consumed” goods since most teams devour their snacks right there on the field!

How many resources can you think of in each category? When using this activity in a classroom setting, you can add a dash of competition by dividing into small groups and challenging each team to listen to the other presentations and see if they can spot any additional resources.

Visit Us Every Day in April

Tomorrow we’ll continue Financial Literacy Month with a close look at the economics strand of the FUTURES™ program.

For more information about FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ for students in kindergarten through eighth grade or to download any of the 29 sections of the program, please click below.