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.

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.