Week Six

This Week

This week we finished up our personal finance unit material and began working on our first project after taking our second test over personal finance. Overall, students performed well and demonstrated a high level of comprehension of the material covered. Students also gained access to their stock market challenge portfolios and have begun practicing for the stock market simulation challenge, which officially starts in October.

We are now working on our vacation project, whereby students plan a trip to a non-USA contiguous country. A handful of students have asked if they can stay in vacation homes or time shares owned by their family members or friends. As this is a fictional trip, and those experiences are possible, I am telling them they may do so. I would encourage you to have them talk with those family members so they can get a fuller understanding of what travel outside the United States entails and how to become successful travelers, particularly in the area of trip planning and budgeting. This will help make this experience more authentic, and who knows, maybe your family can take the trip together some day after the students do all of this planning!

Read more about the project on the project website, which serves as a template for students to model their website after.

Of course we will be out for Plan E tomorrow. Students are continuing their work on their own individual portions of the assignments during this time period.

Upcoming Week

Students are working on the vacation project for the next two weeks. When they're finished, they will be presenting to the rest of the class in order to allow us to experience their vacations. Below are the due dates associated with the project:

Complete the "Before You Go" page and designate roles for ALL group members on this page. Fill out the Vacation Planner and submit for approval to Mr. Grieve (by Thursday, 9/18/14) 
 
Creation of website and send the URL to Mr. Grieve (by Thursday, 9/18/14)

Website should be finished and ready to present before class on (Wednesday, 10/1/14) 

Have a great weekend!

~Mr. Grieve

Week Five

This Week

This week we began our look at stocks. Students have now been exposed to stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, as well as an overview of what ETFs are and how they work. Students have been given the opportunity to learn about these securities through the GeniRevolution game or through more traditional worksheets. Students have also learned about how to place stock orders, both market orders and conditional ones. Finally, students were given access to the Ohio Stock Market Challenge website and may now to practice growing their portfolios. The competition doesn't start until October, so students are encouraged to try out different investment strategies and experiment now before the simulation begins. As we prepare for our tests next week, students will need to complete the Review Sheet they were given today and study for the second test and study this over the weekend.

Upcoming Week

Next week students will take the test on Monday, but after that we will begin our first major project - the vacation project. Students will be working on planning a vacation to the destination country of their choice (in groups), so students will be assigned roles within their groups and given a budget to plan their trip. The project will last for at least two weeks and students will create websites for their trips. This project is always a lot of fun, and hopefully students will be able to take these trips some day! To check out more about what this project entails, see the website I have created to serve as a template/directions.

Check out the travel site to see what the vacation project will look like!

Don't forget about the Plan E on Friday of next week.

Also, next week an informational meeting is scheduled for Monday for all 10th and 11th grade JCOWA students. Seniors would be invited, but they have a Jostens meeting they have to attend.

The meeting will take place at 12:15 in my room and we will be going over the recently released study guide. If you'd like to take a look at the study guide, you can find it here.

There are four JCOWA events this year:

• Oct. 29 - International Career Day at Sinclair CC
• Dec. 2 - Youth Forum at Wright State University
• February 9 - Academic Quiz Bowl at the University of Dayton
• April 2014 - Geography Bowl at the University of Dayton

Due to the large number of students who have joined (over 50!) we will have to be selective this year in terms of who goes to which of the first two events. We may or may not be able to attend the Geography Bowl. We will be going over who gets to attend which event on Monday at this informational meeting, so it's important that students attend.


Have a great week!

~Mr. Grieve

Week Four

This Week

This week we learned about what APR means, why it matters, and what places don't have to tell you APR - Rent-to-Own stores. Students learned about the dangers of doing Rent to Own and why it's almost always a better idea to save up for something instead or (if that's not feasible) to put something on a credit card, where you know the APR and it's (hopefully) much lower. We also learned about mobile apps and how to use them safely by creating complicated passwords. Finally, we began our study of stocks and investments as we started playing the investment game, http://www.genirevolution.org/, where students participate in personal finance scenarios and get to play games while learning along the way.

Next Week

Next week is all about investments, as well will continue learning about stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. Students will be introduced to the Ohio Stock Market Challenge simulation they will be participating in this year, where they will be "given" $100,000 to invest in real stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. This is a fun simulation where students get to compete with other students around the state, and the winners get a lunch that is not free, but is paid for by the Wright State University College of Business as well as a field trip to visit. Learn more about this competition at http://ohiosmc.stocktrak.com/.

Check out the simulation here

Have a great weekend!

~Mr. Grieve