So, what are the things that make activities effective and what should you be looking for in order to increase the impact of the lessons that you are teaching your children?

What follows are some guidelines for how to choose money activities for your kids and some suggestions about what will make those lessons stick! 

Make It Fun:
My parents were very focused on teaching me about financial literacy. But the lessons that really took hold were the ones which were fun and offered an interesting intellectual challenge. For instance, my parents taught me to budget by taking me to the food court and giving me a five dollar bill. I was allowed to buy anything that I wanted, but I was not allowed to exceed the five dollar budget. This was fun, and it offered an interesting intellectual challenge (i.e. how do I get the meal I want - and still have money left over for dessert?).

To the contrary, the lessons that were forced didn't stick as well and in some cases I feel resistant to those principles even though I know they are sensible things to do. As an example, my Dad used to sit me down in front of Quicken and make me reconcile my receipts on a monthly basis - I hated it - and my Dad had to nag me to get me to do it. It's not that I don't do this now, but because I felt pressured (badgered really) I, to this day, have a negative response every time I sit down to do this.

My advice, keep things light, make them into a game or a challenge were possible and avoid nagging. 

Make It Hands On:
Edgar Dale's Cone of Learning states that we remember:

• 10% of what we read
• 20% of what we hear
• 30% of what we see
• 50% of what we see and hear
• 70% of what we say
• and a whopping 90% of what we say and do!

If you want your kids to remember something then you need to make it active, hands on, and then you need to get them to tell you about it. Activities where they makes something (a craft, model, presentation, game) are going to have a greater impact than if you were to give them four lectures! How's that for bang for your educational buck?

This doesn't have to be complicated you can simply issue a challenge to your child and get them to show you if and why something is important. They then research the question and create a presentation or a game to illustrate what they find. An additional benefit to this strategy is that you can have a much deeper discussion with your children on the topic because they know more about it than they did before and more likely than not they are already hooked.

Consider The Context:

Nothing has more impact than the exact right information, at the exact right time presented in the exact right way. Listen to the things your kids are saying and asking. Then find activities which will give them the answers, information or skills they are looking for.

Example, when I was ten I desperately wanted a ghetto blaster (stereo, for those non-nineties children). My Dad used that opportunity  to teach me how to save up, research different brands of stereos, consider my specific needs and shop around for the right stereo. I remember being really proud of that ghetto blaster I'd saved for it, shopped for it, waited for it and the next thing I knew I was making mixed tapes with ease!

My point is, things tend to leave a greater impression when it happens in the correct context. In the teaching profession we called them "teachable moments". They are those magical times when your child wants something (an item, information, an answer to a question) and you have the exact right response - educational bulls eye!  

Practice, Practice, Practice:
Repetition and practice, without becoming tedious, are important ways to ensure your lessons are getting through to your child. Don't be afraid to have your child try something more than once or at regular intervals. They will become more confident and competent at the activity every time they try. There are also new lessons, perspectives and conversations to be explored every time you do something.

If you are confronted with the, "but we've already done this" whine, challenge your kids to do it again but do it even better than the first time!    

Make Sure It's Accurate:
You want to make sure that the activity is giving your kids good, up to date, financially sound information. Anytime that you are going to do a money activity with your kids you will personally want to do it first. Imagine that you succeed in helping your child ingrain a financial principle or financial information that is incorrect or misguided, it could have negative long term effects.
 

You can't really control what your kids will take away from any given money activity. What you can control is how you present money activities for your kids and their attitudes towards money in the long run.

For fun, hands on and engaging money activities for your kids take a look at our TrueSmarts Academy. Your children can earn points and badges while improving their financial literacy skills and entrepreneurial attitudes. 

I was a Brownie, Girl Guide, Pathfinder, and a Junior Leader - in total I spent 14 years of my life as an active member of the guiding organization. And during those 14 years I lugged around a fair share of girl guide cookies. Thus, when a couple of adorable girls sporting cute uniforms and enthusiastic smiles showed up on my doorstep toting these boxes of sweet nutritional death - I was compelled to buy two boxes.

While conversing with these brilliant young ladies, I described my experience with selling cookies. I was never very good at selling - I probably only sold 10 - 20 boxes a year. (In my defense my home town only had about 16000 people. Not as many selling opportunities as there are in a city of over a million.) The young lady standing on my door step proudly stated that she sold 17 cases in a year.  17 cases! That's 204 boxes of cookies, $5 a box means that she made a total $1020 in sales - not bad for an 11 year old!

I expressed my surprise and told her that she must be a sales genius, to which she replied that the secret to selling was "hotspots!" She took a couple cases to her dad's work and a few other places where there were going to be numerous people who would be, like me, helpless against the forces of Girl Guides bearing nougat! Smart Girl!

Teach your kids to sell:

I thought about the skills that this young lady had employed and began thinking that selling cookies for guides, or chocolate bars for band, or raffle tickets for sporting events or any other fundraiser where your child needs to sell some product - offers a fantastic opportunity to teach kids the art of sales.

Here are some ideas and activities which will help you teach your kids to sell.

Identify the Target Market:

Sit down with your child and have a discussion, ask your child two questions 1) Who will buy this? 2) Why will they buy this? Write down a list of individuals/groups of people that would be interested in buying what they are selling and why they think that people will make a purchase. Here are some ideas for groups of people and their possible motivations:

Finding Hotspots:

What defines a "Hotspot"? A hotspot is a location where there will be a high density pocket of motivated buyers. The girl guide I spoke about went to her dad's work. An office full of supportive co-workers + her in uniform looking cuter than pie = cha ching!

The office is a good place to start, but there is also school. Get your child to talk to an administrator and see if it is possible to set up a booth in the cafeteria or if the child would be allowed to sell in the teacher's lounge (the teacher's lounge is a gold mine by the way).

Try to find an event that will bring a large group of ex-members to your child's organization together and set up a booth there. Some of these events could be a sporting event, rally, party, or a meeting.

Sales Pitch:

You could help your child create a sales presentation for his/her product. Take a look at the TrueSmarts Sales Pitch activity for ideas on how to create one. You child could present their pitch at a gathering, or for family members. Chances are the prospective buyers will be impressed with the extra effort he/she has put into selling their product and this might motivate them to make a bigger purchase.

Elevator Pitch:

If your child is going door to door or they are selling in a more fast paced situations they may want to create an elevator pitch. An elevator pitch is a two to three sentence synopsis of the use and advantages of the product they are selling. See TrueSmarts' Elevator Pitch activity for more complete instructions on how to create this type of sales pitch.

Advertising:

This might be a good way to have the buyers come to your child. Here are some advertising ideas that your child could use:

• Create and distribute flyers: Prospective buyers need to know what the offering is and a date, time and location where they can buy. Kids could put these on school bulletin boards, or in coffee shops (as long as what you are selling is not for profit most coffee shops will let you advertise on a bulletin board or have flyers at the till)
• If your child is selling door to door: Leave "sorry we missed you" flyers on potential customer's doors if they are not home. Detail what is being sold as well as where and when they would be able to make a purchase if they wanted to.
• Your child could create and publish a simple website: Publishing an HTML page with a contact form for customers to place orders could be very effective. Flyer's or brochures should point back to their website.
• Your child could create an e-mail campaign: Email would be an effective means to reach relatives or contacts who are out of you neighborhood or out of town. Your child might also be able to get a contact list with e-mail addresses for past members / athletes etc. from a leader or a coach).

Conclusion:

At some point or another your child will have to sell something to someone. Why not use these times as an opportunity to teach your kids to sell.

 Finished reading the article and want more? Take a look at the Entrepreneurship stream in TrueSmarts Academy. There are hundreds more fantastic, fun, and hands on business activities for kids, which will help them to learn key business skills such as leadership, creativity, organization, time management, sales, marketing and so much more. Your kids will get to earn points, collect badges and begin building their business brain!

Objective:

To introduce young children to starting their own business.

Description:

Encourage your child to use items they find at home and set up a store where they can sell their products to friends and family.

Steps:

1. Ask your child what he/she might like to sell. Here are some ideas if you are stuck:

• They could go to the pantry and grab some cookies to sell or you could make cookies together and sell those.
• They could sell their crafts or artwork.
• They could sell toys that they don't want anymore.

2. Get them to set up a table in the living room or make a cardboard store together. Get a toy cash register, decorate the store etc.

3. Get them to create prices for their merchandise. You can use real money or play money but make sure that you decide before they open their store.

4. Have them create signs for their store.

5. Get them to sell their merchandise at home for a little while (20 mins - 1 hour). You could ask a friend or two to drop by to buy something or you could dress up as different people and pretend to be different customers. You could also take turns being the customer and being the merchant. 

Complete When:

Mark this activity as complete when your child has started one simple business.

Objective:

To shoe teens how to fully research three of their financial goals.

Description:

You are starting to have some big financial goals. One important step to achieving your financial goals is learning how to fully research your goals so that you have a good idea of all of the costs involved with your goal. Use this worksheet to research your top three financial goals.

Steps:

1. Go to the attachments section of this activity. Download and print "research your goals".

2. Decide your top three financial goals and fill out the worksheet. Use the internet, consumer reviews, and magazines to conduct your research.

3. Show your worksheet to a friend or family member and ask if there is anything that you have forgotten or if there is anything that you should consider that you haven't so far.

4. File your research away for future reference.

Complete When:

This activity is complete when you have completed the worksheets for researching your goals and you have discussed your findings with a friend or family member.

Objective:

To teach children delayed gratification and about interest.

Description:

Learning delayed gratification is important for your child's business and financial success later in life. Use this simple exercise to teach your children that waiting can be sweet.

Steps:

1. Gather a bag of jelly beans (marshmallows, chocolate chips, or other small candies work well or you can use coins for the lesson), you will also need a jar and a calendar.

2. Place the jar(s) in front of your kids. 

3. Place one jelly bean on a table. Tell your children that they can either eat their jelly bean now or they can lend the jelly bean to you for a day and they will get two jelly beans tomorrow. Let them make the choice.

4. If they offer to lend you the jelly bean offer them two more jelly beans the next day and give them the same choice. They can lend their three jelly beans to you for a day or they can eat them now. If they offer to lend the jelly beans to you then offer them three more jelly beans the next day, six more the next, twelve the next and so on.

5. If they decide to eat the jelly bean now on the first day explain how they will get more jelly beans if they wait. If they still decide to eat their jelly bean now then let them and offer them the same deal the next day (you will stay at one jelly bean though until they decide to lend you the jelly bean).

6. After you have done this for 5-7 days take out your calendar. Show them how many jelly beans they would have if they lent the beans to you for one month and the number of beans doubles every day. Show your kids how many jelly beans they would have if they decided that they would eat them right away. Explain that sometimes the rewards are greater if you have the patience to wait a little.

Note: You can also use this demonstration to explain interest to your children. Tell them that when you lend someone money they pay you interest on the money they borrow until they pay you back.

Complete When:

Mark this activity as complete when you have done the jelly bean activity with your child for 5-7 days and they have a good understanding of why sometimes it is good to wait for the things we want.

Objective:

To teach teens how to prioritize their financial goals as a first step to financial planning.

Description:

You are starting to have some large and important financial goals. The first step to making a financial plan, so that you can achieve these goals, is prioritizing what is most important to you. This helps you to focus your resources and energy on the things that are most important to you. 

Steps:

1. Look in the attachment section of this activity. Download and print the worksheet "Prioritize Your Goals".

2. Rank your financial goals in order of importance to you.

3. Write down any goals you have that are not included on the worksheet.

4. Keep your worksheet for future reference.

Complete When:

This activity is complete when you have prioritized your financial goals.

Objective:

To show teenagers how to research, plan for and decide whether or not they can afford to buy a car.

Description:

If you are thinking about trying to buy a car then there are a few things you will need to consider before you make your purchase. Here are some helpful worksheets to help you fully research, fund and make your first major purchase.

Steps:

1. Look in the attachments section of this activity and download the "Buying A Car" pdf and the "Car Comparison" pdf.

2. Follow the instructions on this worksheet to fully research and help you decide what kind of car you should buy.

3. Look in the attachments section of this activity and download the "Car Financials" excel file.

4. Fill in the Car Financials spreadsheet.

5. When you have completed your research and your financial analysis, discuss your findings with a friend or family member. Ask them if you are missing anything and if there are other things to consider when making this large of a purchase.

6. If you can demonstrate you can afford this purchase, you have fully researched and have a strong idea of what type of car you would like to purchase and your parents approve your decision then go out and make your purchase.

Complete When:

Mark this activity as complete when you have researched types of car you might want and you have completed a financial plan for your car purchase.

This engaging new platform makes it easier than ever for you to provide your kids with an opportunity to learn and develop their financial literacy skills and entrepreneurial attitudes.

From day one, we’ve worked hard to provide you with Activities that would help you cultivate confident, outgoing, creative, and well-rounded children.

With TrueSmarts Academy, we have handpicked some of our already fantastic activities and organized them into two streams: Financial Literacy and Entrepreneurship. Within these two streams, we’ve created a series of progressive badges that your children can now earn as they complete activities. Once they have earned all of the badges within a stream, you can rest assured knowing that they have acquired a solid foundation in the subjects and gained valuable experience.

You can continue to work, hand in hand with your kids completing activities, however, with the introduction of TrueSmarts Academy, kids are now able to choose and complete activities on their own schedule.

You’ll also be better equipped to monitor their progress and provide assistance when necessary.

Sign up today and give your kids the advantage of financial literacy and entrepreneurship.

Objective:

To teach teenagers about life, property, auto and disability insurance.

Description:

Life can be unpredictable and sometimes things will not go as planned. Learn how to protect yourself, your property and your love ones when disaster strikes.

Steps:

1. Read the information at TheMint.org about protecting your health, property, car, family and income.

2. Answer the following for yourself:

• What is insurance?
• Is it important? Why or why not?
• Do you have any assets that should be insured (a car or an income that you are dependent on)?
• Do you have any life insurance or critical illness insurance through your work? If so what is covered? Do you feel that this will offer you enough coverage in case something goes wrong? 
• What types of insurance will you need in the future?

3. Discuss insurance with friends or family.

• What kinds of insurance do they have?
• How did they choose their insurance policies?
• Do they feel like they are completely covered if something went wrong?
• Have they ever had an experience where they had to make an insurance claim? How did it go? Where they happy with the service they got from their insurance provider?

Complete When:

Mark this activity as complete when you have read the information at TheMint.org, you have considered your own insurance needs and you have discussed insurance with a friend or family member.

Objective:

To get teens thinking about what retirement means and how their personal finances are likely to change.

Description:

You have many years to go before you really need to start considering retirement, however, it's very beneficial for you to understand how your income and expenses will likely be affected.

Steps:

1. Imagine that you are about to retire and consider the following questions:
   
   
   • Will you income increase or decrease?
   • Where will your income come from?
   • Is your income fixed or will it grow over time?
   • How will you be taxed in retirement?
   • What type of expenses will you have?
   • Will your expenses increase or decrease?
   • How will inflation affect your income and expenses?
   • What would be the major risks to your finances (poor returns on investments, medical expenses, etc.)
     
     
2. Plug in some numbers into one of the many available retirement planning worksheets available on the internet.
   
   
   • Example: The Vanguard Group's Evaluate Your Retirement Expenses and Income
     
     
3. Now discuss the above questions & worksheets with a friend or family member you know who is in or nearing retirement.

Complete When:

Mark this activity as complete when you feel that you have a good basic understanding of what retirement means to your personal finances.

Objective:

To introduce children and teens to the different types of insurance.

Description:

The more assets you have, the more income you earn or the bigger your family grows the more important it is to protect the things and people that are important to you. Learn about insurance and think about what kinds of insurance you will need at which point in your life.

Steps:

1. Research the following types of insurance and their purpose:

• Disability insurance
• Life insurance
• Health insurance
• Long-term care insurance
• Auto insurance
• Property insurance
• Liability insurance

2. Download the "Insurance Timeline" from the attachments section. cut out the different types of insurance and then glue them into the time of your life that you think you will need that type of insurance.

3. Show your timeline to a friends or family. Ask them when they needed to start purchasing insurance and what types of insurance they purchased at about which age.

Complete When:

Mark this activity as complete when you are able to describe the purpose of each type of insurance listed above.

Objective:

To show kids and teens how to create a logo.

Description:

A logo is a recognizable image, font or arrangement of shapes that we use to represent a business. Examples of logos are the golden arches for McDonald's or the apple with a bite out of it for Apple Inc. 

Steps:

1. Think of the business that you will be creating your logo for. Answer the following for yourself:

• What are you selling or what service will you be providing?
• What are the images that come to mind when you think abut your business?
• Do you have a name for your company? Is there an image you associate with that name?
• Do you want to have an image or would you just like to create a text logo?

2. Do a Google search for your competitor's logos. Think about what you like about those logos and what you don't like.

3. Think about the colors you will use for your logo. Choose one or two colors that you really like. You may want to go to a site like Kuler, these sites give you a variety of different color schemes to choose from. Choose one or two colors that you really like and write them down. What do those colors say to your customers? Do they reflect your company?

4. Draw and color several different ideas for your logo.If you don't draw then you can always try a free logo generator.

5. Show your ideas to your friends and family and see which one they like best and why.

6. Choose the logo that you like best and start using in on your printed and online material for your business.

Complete When:

Mark this activity as complete when you have created one logo.

Objective:

To show kids and teens how to start their own blog.

Description:

If you love to write, blogs are an awesome opportunity to write and share your writing with the public. Writing a blog or adding a blog to an existing website is also a great way for you to connect with your customers with articles that interest them and it will improve your search engine rankings.

Steps:

1. Brainstorm ideas for your blog. You will need to come up with one consistent theme that you would like to blog about. Some ideas include:

• An interest or hobby you have
• Your thoughts and philosophy
• Your family life and relationships
• Books you've read, movies you've watched and what you thought about them.
• Helpful advice
• your short stories, poetry, an online comic book

If there are many things that you would like to Blog about it would be better to stay consistent and write a separate blog for each topic than it would be to write a blog that is about too many different topics. If your blogs content is too varied you will be less likely to gain and maintain a consistent audience.

2. Decide how often you will blog (once a day, week, month, etc). Remember that it doesn't matter how often you blog, it just matters that you are providing your readers with high quality content to read and that you are consistent. 

3. Choose a free blog platform to work from. There are several to choose from here are links to a couple of them:

• Wordpress
• Blogger

4. Set up your blog to look the way that you want it to. There are templates that you can choose from and you can upload your profile picture as well as any other images you would like on your blog. You can choose widgets or plugins for your blog which will give it more interactivity and you can link your blog to your social media sites.

5. Write several blog articles and back log them. The more articles you have back logged the easier it will be for you to stay on top of your blog. This will also allow you a chance to keep publishing blogs even when you need a little break from it.

6. Promote your blog. Send out e-mails to your friends and family and post a link to your blog on all of your social media sites. If no one knows your blog is there - no one will read it!

Note: Remember the internet has a VERY long memory. Anything that you write or post online will be accessible for many years and is almost impossible to completely get rid of. Be very cautious about what you put online, how much personal information you give out and the type of content that you put on the net. You never know how your information will be used or how it will impact you later on. A good rule of thumb is if your Grandma (or any other adult that you like and respect) wouldn't want to see it or know it DON'T put it online.   

Complete When:

Mark this activity as complete when you have planned, created, published and promoted a blog of your own.

Objective:

To give kids an easy way to plan a business.

Description:

Use the All terrain Brain Business Builder Tool to plan out your business.

Steps:

1. Navigate to the All Terrain Brain Business Builder Tool.

2. Enter how much profit you would like to make.

3. Enter the type of business you will operate.

4. Enter what materials you have, need to borrow and need to buy then enter the cost of each material you will need to buy.

5. Enter your price per service or sale.

6. Find out how much you will have to do in order to make your profit goal.

Note: you can use this as part of your business plan for a business that you are planning to create and run.

Complete When:

Mark this activity as complete when you have completed the Business Builder process at least once.

Objective:

To help teens identify attitudes and opportunities which will help them achieve success.

Description:

In the book titled, "Outliers, The Story of Success", Malcolm Gladwell puts forward his theory that success has less to do with the talents we are born with and more to do with a combination of hard work and favorable circumstances. Some of the opportunities that Gladwell writes about include:

• birth-date

• culture/language

• right time/right place

• more opportunities to practice

Read the outliers and learn to identify attitudes and opportunities which will help you be successful later in life.

Complete When:

Mark this activity as complete when you have read "Outliers" or enough of it to get a good idea of the main ideas in the book.

Objective:

To teach teens how to write JavaScript.

Description:

If you are interested in designing your own websites it will be very useful for you to learn JavaScript.

Steps:

1. Navigate to the W3 Schools website. This site provides you with free tutorials in HTML, CSS, JavaScript and other web programming languages.

2. Choose and complete several tutorials for JavaScript.

3. Practice what you have learned by using a free web developer software such as Araneae.

Complete When:

Mark this activity as complete when you have completed two or three tutorials in JavaScript and you feel like you have a good understanding of JavaScript and how it is used.

Objective:

To teach teens how to write Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).

Description:

If you are interested in designing your own websites it will be very useful for you to learn CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).

Steps:

1. Navigate to the W3 Schools website. This site provides you with free tutorials in HTML, CSS, Javascript and other web programming languages.

2. Choose and complete several tutorials for CSS.

3. Practice what you have learned by using a free web developer software such as Araneae.

Complete When:

Mark this activity as complete when you have completed two or three tutorials in CSS and you feel like you have a very good understanding of CSS and how it is used.