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.

Lemonade Stand Logistics

Today, on Day 9 of Financial Literacy Month with FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™, we’re talking entrepreneurship—and it tastes delicious. Ask your kids or students if they know what an entrepreneur does. Do you know any entrepreneurs? Have you ever been an entrepreneur?

If they answer “no,” tell them to think again. They might not realize that anyone who has ever had a babysitting gig, a paper route, or a lemonade stand has worked as an entrepreneur. Share examples of entrepreneurs in your neighborhood—the dry cleaner, the food truck owner, and even the candy store owner are all entrepreneurs. 

So, let’s take a closer look at what it takes—the logistics of—running a lemonade stand. What happens at a lemonade stand? Who are the different people who participate? How do you get ready to open a lemonade stand? 

1. The entrepreneur buys lemons, sugar, and cups to make lemonade.

2. The entrepreneur makes lemonade.

3. The entrepreneur sells lemonade.

4. The entrepreneur buys more supplies to make lemonade.

Produce It and Consume It!

Once kids grasp the concept that running a lemonade stand is like running a small business, it’s time to relate the scenario of the lemonade stand as a way to introduce the economic concepts of producers and consumers. Explain that when an entrepreneur buys lemons, sugar, and other supplies to make lemonade, she or he is a consumer. When the entrepreneur makes and sells lemonade, he or she is a producer. Explain that the people who buy the lemonade are also consumers.

Ask kids to make a list of examples of times they’ve acted as a consumer and times they’ve acted as a producer. Can a person or business ever be both a producer and a consumer? You can ask these questions while you’re out an about or when kids “consume” paper and paint for their next class project.

 Let’s Make a Deal!

Now that they know how a lemonade stand works, ask kids how they think they would decide what to charge for each cup of lemonade. Begin by prompting them to think about everything they need to “consume” or buy in order to make the lemonade. Ask kids how they might decide on pricing? Does their answer signal you that they’ll make a profit?

As a first step in thinking about pricing, have kids look up the cost of all the ingredients online or by asking family members what they last paid for these items at the grocery store. Remind them that lemons and sugar cost money, but they also will need many other things—materials for a sign, the stand itself, a pitcher, and cups.

Based on all these factors, ask kids to come up with a plan. How many cups need to be sold to “cover” costs? If the price is too low, the stand isn’t profitable. If the price is too high, no one is going to become a customer. Try to settle on what is a reasonable price to charge for a cup of lemonade at a lemonade stand.  Ask kids to think about how much THEY would pay for a cup of lemonade—with their own money? This is a great way to tap into the concept of fair market value. Remind your budding entrepreneurs that consumers have to want or need what you are selling much more than they want or need the dollars in their pocket.

How do producers and consumers decide on a price that meets BOTH their needs?
Ask kids logistical questions like:

• How will you make change?

• Do you need to begin with a bankroll? How much?

• What will you do if you run out of lemonade?

• What is your plan for any leftover lemonade?

• Will you have a sale to “drink up” the excess? (Or is lemonade on the menu for dinner?)

Safety First!

Who’s feeling thirsty now? If your kids want to plan a real lemonade stand, remind them that safety always comes first. Any lemonade stand should be in a safe place such as a community center, as part of a school event, or at a block party or other neighborhood gathering. Always have approval from adults first. If your kids are permitted to venture outside for their lemonade stand, an adult should always be close by even if it is in a place you know well. Besides, it’s a great photo opportunity for your budding entrepreneurs. Imagine being able to share that first business with your grown child when a real first business is launched!

Visit Us Every Day in April

Tomorrow, tune in again as we continue Financial Literacy Month with a close look at the four kinds of resources that go into a simple peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich! Hungry?

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.

Give me FIVE! What Do You Know about the Five-Dollar Bill?

Now that you have kids thinking about saving for the future, it’s a great time to find out what kids know about money—as in cash, currency, legal tender. We’re talking Benjamins (and Jeffersons, Lincolns, Hamiltons…).

 Although they likely use it—or see parents or guardians use it—every day, they probably haven’t thought much about where their money comes from or how it’s produced.

 On Day 8 of Financial Literacy Month, brought to you by FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™, we’re exploring fun facts about currency, with a special focus on the five-dollar bill.

First, ask kids what they already know about money:

• Where does money come from?

• Who makes our money?

• Who chooses the designs and why are they so fancy?

• What do the numbers and labels on a bill stand for?

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

Then share these facts with them:

The Federal Reserve System, known as “the Fed,” is the central bank of the United States. In its role as the central bank, the Fed is a bank for other banks and also a bank for the federal government.  

Paper currency is labeled Federal Reserve Note because the value of money is backed by the federal government. This means that the paper itself is not worth the amount of money, but it means that the government agrees to “back” this amount of money.

Paper money is designed at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Artists at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing choose the design for the bill and then create an engraving. The engraver carves the designs onto metal plates, which transfers the designs to paper—resulting in the paper money we see every day. The Treasury prints billions of notes each year! 

Not just anyone can be an artist for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Everyone is carefully screened. Designing and printing money requires a high security clearance. Money designs are complex—by design. The more intricate the design and printing, the less likely it is that money can be counterfeited.

Once money is printed on big sheets of special paper, the money is cut into individual bills, bundled in sets, counted, recounted, and probably counted yet again. There are lots and lots of procedures, every step along the way.  

When the money is ready to be released, it goes to the Federal Reserve System, a big set of banks for the country. The Federal Reserve figures out exactly how much currency to put into circulation. There are lots of complex factors involved in making these decisions. It’s a dangerous to an economy to release too little money or too much money. The federal reserve System also oversees all banks to be sure that everyone is following all the rules about money. 

Every single bill of every single denomination bill is labeled with a letter and number representing one of the 12 regional Federal Reserve Banks located around the country.

The letter D stands for Denver, for example.

Learn the Art of Money-Making

 Visit the U.S. Currency Education Program’s Art Studio online to learn more about how the artists and engravers at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing put their mark on each bill. Learn what each picture, symbol, and line on a bill stands for, as well as how color and texture come into play. Then kids can take a peek at some real bills and find out how many differences they can spot!

Let’s Take a Look at a Five-Dollar Bill!

Every single part of any bill’s design is purposeful and has meaning. Every part is designed to make it as hard as possible for anyone to copy it and circulate counterfeit bills. This level of detail makes money very beautiful, too. Check out what each design on the five-dollar bill stands for. This bill was put into circulation by the Chicago Federal Reserve.

Are You a Bill Designer?

Now that you know what the parts of a bill do, why not create some money designs?! Even the youngest artists can try their hand at Bill Design. Enjoy these examples. Ask you kids to decide what denominations they’ll want in their treasury. Remind them that it’s tough to make change for a $7-bill!

Visit Us Every Day in April

Tomorrow, tune in again as we continue Financial Literacy Month with some fun and enterprising lemonade stand logistics. We’ll learn about the roles of producers and consumers and discuss how kids can be entrepreneurs with nothing but some lemons, sugar, and financial know-how.

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 Earned a Million Dollars?

For Day 7 of Financial Literacy Month, FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ serves up the first in a series of Sunday posts designed to help kids imagine a bigger and brighter future by playing a game of “What If…?” These “What If. . .?” settings help kids to “see” possibilities they might never have considered.  

Everybody knows weekends are game time—whether your kids are into football or board games, this is an ideal time to set aside a few weekend minutes to play a fun-filled “What If” game that helps kids imagine big things in their own futures. This financial literacy game also works well in any classroom, and makes a great kick-off to the week or a strong wrap-up for next Friday afternoon. With the framework mapped out in this post, you'll be able to tap into some creative big-picture thinking with your family or your class.

Just think of the reaction when you toss out this question as you and your kids are wrapping up the week or running weekend errands—

“What Would YOU Do if You Earned a Million Dollars?”

A million dollars sounds like a lot of money—and it is, especially to kids! This simple question can fuel many lively visualizations. Don’t you want to know what your kids think is possible for their bigger futures? A million-dollar salary is a great starting point. How far does money really go? In this activity, kids will learn the value of a million dollars—to them—and they’ll be able to determine their financial “worth in the world” as they contemplate, perhaps for the first time, just what they could contribute that would empower them to earn a million-dollar salary.

STEP 1: Brainstorm!

Ask: If you earned a million dollars, what would your job be?  

Start with the HOW. Begin by helping kids visualize their dream jobs. What would be your million-dollar job? What would you contribute that would help you to earn this much money?

These questions reinforce the need to work to earn money, no matter what the dollar amount might be. “Earning cash before burning cash” is a big financial factor for all of us.  

Ask kids to describe what they will do for their paycheck and you may just discover some hidden interests. A dream job like “inventing a new kind of phone” might spark explorations into STEM, engineering, and other education tracks. A dream job like being a rock star might speak to musical talents or a computer design program at the community center. When kids pop up with dream jobs like playing for their favorite sports team, this provides the chance to discuss “stretch goals” and more realistic goals. Could your potential pro athlete also begin to volunteer for the school broadcasting club to get some experience “around the sport” just on the “off-chance” that the pro-ball contract doesn’t come through?

Ask: What would you DO with the money once you earned it?

Move onto the WHAT. Once you help your kids “see” themselves as capable of earning a million dollars, it’s time to move into what money can “buy.” Ask kids to share their ideas about what they would do with the million dollars they earned. Remember, most kids don’t have any idea how big a million dollars is not. When kids suggest ways of spending their paycheck, you’ll gain valuable insights into their priorities. Are they focused on acquisitions, helping others, building businesses, or travel?

If they’re stumped for ideas, kick off the conversation by asking these questions:

• Do you think a million dollars is a lot of money?

• Where would you live?

• How would you get around?

• How much of your million dollars a year do you think you would need to live? (Prompt them with rent, mortgage, bills, food, clothing, transportation categories to guide their thinking.)

• Once you pay for all that you need, what would you want to do with what’s left?

• Would you save any of your money? If so, how much?

• If you would save money, what would you save it for? (Prompts: College, rainy day, a time when you can’t work, retirement?)

• Would you use any of your money to help other people? Who?

• Are there any causes that are important to you that you would want to support financially?

• What do you think you would need to pay in taxes on your million-dollar salary?

• Do you know what your tax dollars would pay for?

• Would you invest any money in the stock market?

• Would you buy something special?

• Do you think a million dollars is a lot of money, now?

STEP 2: Capture!

As you can see, any of these questions can lead to a longer exploration of just how far a million dollars can—and cannot—stretch. As kids solidify their vision, write down their game plan. These make wondrous keepsakes to share with your kids at milestone events like high school graduation. Such Million-Dollar Dreams Lists have even been presented at an engagement party or two! When you and your kids look back on these early visualization plans, you might detect the first threads leading to a future career. If your pre-teen plans to live on a mountaintop with five kids and a boat while helping everyone to have as much dessert as they want, you just might discover your rock-climbing young adult has a true flair for pastry and may one day run a major cupcake franchise!]

STEP 3: Explore More!

Older kids can rank and prioritize their goals and visions in order of importance. They can also separate the items on their Million-Dollar Dreams List into the two categories of needs and wants.

As a bonus activity, once your kids have narrowed down the list to their biggest wants, goals, and intentions, they can further cement their visualization by “browsing the real world” for examples. Prompt kids to look up options online, get a sense of what their dream ideas might cost, and re-evaluate their ideas. “Wait. THAT’s what a motorcycle would cost—today? What do you think it will cost by the time I can drive one?”

Even if you end up being the “recorder” for these vibrant exchanges, it’s well worth it to capture and document these early discussions. Be sure to snap a photo of your notes, too. In today’s busy world, it’s easy to forget about these predictors. What a treat when these are rediscovered down the road.

To develop a strong financial future, kids first need to “see” themselves as able to earn, learn, and wisely manage their earnings. As responsible adults, we not only need to serve as strong role models; we also need to help our kids to discover their visions, passions, and pathways for their bigger futures, financial and otherwise.

  Visit Us Every Day in April

Tomorrow, tune in again as we continue Financial Literacy Month with a close look at the five-dollar bill. Where does paper money come from? What do all the numbers and labels on the bill mean?

Click here to take a closer look at FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™, an innovative financial literacy program designed for students in kindergarten through eighth grade. You may also download any of the 29 sections of the program—for FREE! Just click below.

Weekend Reading: A Chair for My Mother

What’s better than ushering in the weekend by curling up with, sharing, and building upon a good book? That’s easy; curling up, sharing, and building upon a really good book that is rich with financial literacy concepts, strong positive values, and a feel-good ending that will have your entire family smiling. Such is the case with Vera B. Williams’s classic picture book, A Chair for My Mother. The perfect choice for Day 6 of Financial Literacy Month, FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™, even features this book in one of its 29 program instructional sections. It’s that good.

The book centers on a young girl named Rosa who decides to save up to buy a new chair for her mother after a fire destroys everything in their apartment. Working as a waitress at the Blue Tile Diner, Rosa’s mother is on her feet all day. Rosa dreams of giving her with a comfortable place to sit when she returns home at the end of a long day. Along with her mother and Grandma, Rosa works hard and diligently puts aside coins in a big jar. Day by day they save until they finally have enough saved for a trip to the furniture store. Together, the family tries out chair after chair until they find the perfect chair for her mother.  

Named a Caldecott Honor Book by the American Library Association, this engaging and heartwarming book focuses on the joy and love of family while teaching the importance of saving.  

The story can serve as a fun springboard for lots of weekend discussions about family, stories, and extended family tales that your kids will treasure. On a more practical front, this book serves as a delightful foundation to talk about the benefits of setting short- and long-term savings goals. Kids will see that Rosa and her family make difficult choices as they budget their money and save up for an important purchase. You might also share some stories about big purchases you have saved for or that a family member or community group worked hard to achieve. Your own stories will make this award-winning story that much more real to your kids.

Along the way, Rosa learns an important lesson about gratitude. Kids will relate to Rosa’s story, lessons, discoveries, and accomplishments. Together you can apply her lessons to you own lives.

Use these questions to spark a lively discussion about the topics in this very real, fictional story.

• How did Rosa achieve her goal?

• Could you ever see yourself doing something like this?

• Who do we know who really wants something big?

• Why was the goal important to Rosa?

• What sacrifices did she make to achieve it?

• What goals do you have for saving?

• Can you think of anything you’d want to save up for to help out a family member or a friend?

A Chair for My Mother is available at the library or you can purchase it on Amazon by clicking here.

Visit Us Every Day in April

Tomorrow, check back again as we continue Financial Literacy Month with a weekend game of “What if…?”

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

Be a Goalie! Teaching Kids to Save $$$

Now that your kids are getting to know the difference between wants and needs, it’s time to help them understand that wants can require different actions and non-actions. Sometimes setting a goal for a want can mean giving up some things in the sort-term. Big wants can mean some upfront sacrifice to get to a longer-term want. How can you encourage your kids to save up for the fun things they want? Or to even persuade them to begin to think about saving money for future needs? If your kids are looking to go to college, it’s a good idea to encourage them to “put aside” a little bit of money each time they receive even a small windfall.

On Day 5 of Financial Literacy Month, it’s easy to begin teaching kids to BE A GOALIE! Learning to manage money for both wants and needs means setting goals for saving. To get across the concept, use this simple saying: “Saving requires waiting.”

The most important part of money management, of course, is making sure our basic needs are covered—starting with food and housing. Any extra money beyond that can go toward wants, but we can’t have everything we want at once. Adults often do this kind of planning without even realizing it, such as waiting to buy tickets to a concert until after we’ve paid the rent or mortgage, but kids don’t have this level of experience yet and often need some guidance. Many kids “want it all” and by setting up some goals, you can help kids make choices— “I want this, yes, but I want THAT even more.”

 You might need to make specific suggestions to your kids. You could propose that an older child could give up that after-school stop for fast food for a period of time in order to buy a pass to a water park. You could work together to determine just how many of those $3.00 snacks it will take to purchase one $45 water park ticket, for example. You can encourage younger kids to put away pocket change to save up for a desired toy or other small purchase.  

One easy way to get started with this type of goal-setting is to try this activity from FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society.™ This activity will help your kids or students to learn how to begin to set goals and save money. It’s as easy as one, two, three.  

1.     Instruct kids to create a list, draw pictures, grab screen shots, or find magazine images of several things they’d like to save for. Kids will enjoy this part, and can create a sort of “want-list” mood board that can serve as a good visual reminder of bigger goals when they are faced with making smaller financial choices like downloading a song or stopping for a snack after school.

2.     Older kids can then rank the images of their wants in order of importance or from smaller, easy-to-achieve purchase goals to the much larger, longer-term ones. Sometimes, kids recognize that the smaller goals are much less important and they choose to stay focused on the bigger goal. For other kids, smaller goals give them a sense of accomplishment and progress.

3.     Finally, it is time for kids to consider HOW they will fund these wants. Have kids write a second list describing ways they could potentially save/get enough money to fund their wants. Some ways might include an allowance, gifts from extended family, or even a part-time job like pet-sitting or plant-watering. Help them brainstorm ideas that work in your home or classroom setting. Can they earn money doing extra activities? Can they offer out their services to neighbors?

Ask kids:

• Do you think it’s easier to save for short- or long-term goals? Why?

• What big purchase or purchases would you like to make?

• How can you get there?

• What are you willing to give up to reach your goal?

• How important is this goal to you?

• How can we help you?

• How long do you think it will take you?

Visit Us Every Day in April

Tomorrow, visit the site again as we continue Financial Literacy Month with a weekend book recommendation. We’ll discuss a story about a young girl who does something special for her mom—and learns about saving money along the way.

Please click (here?/below?) for more information about FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™, a new and exciting financial literacy program for students in kindergarten through eighth grade. You can download any of the 29 sections of the program, too!

This Little Piggy Bank: Teaching Kids About Personal Finance

Saving coins in a piggy bank. Collecting a weekly allowance. Getting paid for babysitting. Every student enters the classroom having some experience with personal finance. That’s why FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ Program begins with this foundational topic.

This program’s in-depth Personal Finance topics cover key “life-skill” areas:

• Budgeting and Goal Setting

• Taxes

• Savings

• Philanthropy

• Personal Banking

• Interest

• Loans and Credit

• Employment and Income

In this post, we’ll take a deep dive into the first of the four program strands, Personal Finance. This topic adds value to everyone—students, teachers, leaders, and families alike. We can all benefit from a deeper understanding of personal finance—from allowance and pay checks to savings and donations, personal finance savvy helps us to make wise choices.

In this easy-to-access program, the Personal Finance strand has 8 sections. Each of the 29 sections across the program are organized in consistent way, allowing you to spot the exact content and resources that will best meet your objectives. Designed to help teachers “meet their students where they are,” each section is divided into 5 parts, to provide a spiraled, progressive presentation of the topic. This approach provides students with 5 levels of instruction, moving from basic to advanced understanding of related personal finance topics. Each section is organized around a Focus Question. The Budget and Goal Setting section, for example, asks students to consider the following: “When, how, and why is it beneficial to manage your money?” Just think of the discussions this question will inspire!

Each of the five program levels—from Basic Understanding and Application to Advanced Understanding and Application—features its own set of lesson objectives, lesson plan, and a full array of related and highly versatile teacher resources, all ready to use.

In this first section, students learn fundamental Personal Finance skills including how to create a budget, adjust their budget, and track expenses over time. Teachers will find great tools to help guide students through activities such as creating a personal finance goals booklet, completing a worksheet on required vs. discretionary spending, and writing a personal spending diary.

Taking a multidisciplinary approach, the program’s supplemental activities extend the curriculum into different subject areas—including math, art, writing, science, and social studies.

FUTURES™ reaches well beyond the classroom; with its leveled instructional approach and materials, FUTURES™ is an ideal springboard for focused family financial fun.

It’s easy for families to quickly adapt these extension activities like the Language Arts activity that’s based on the book, The Hundred Penny Box by Sharon Bell Mathis. Click here to purchase this book on Amazon.

Once you finish the book, help your kids to develop Social Studies skills as they identify their own personal finance goals and begin to create a budget to achieve their goal within a specific time frame. Links to kid-friendly money management and financial news websites provide additional support and resources in each section, great for kids who prefer a nonfiction approach.

The easy-to-use and flexible program can be adapted for your classroom—or your family room. FUTURES is easy to modify to meet the needs of your class, your family, and your kids!

Visit Us Every Day in April

Tomorrow, tune in as we continue Financial Literacy Month with a post about goal setting. How can we set realistic financial goals? Why is this important?

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.