Free Lesson Plan: What is a Company?

Editor's Note: This article was produced by the staff of The Stock Market Game, a stock market simulation for students.

The Stock Market Game program provides free, sequenced lesson plans to teachers that can help them teach students about saving and investing in grades 4-12 while supporting core curriculum subjects.

What is the Stock Market Game?

Serving more than 10 million students across all socio-economic backgrounds since 1977, The Stock Market Game (SMG) program is America's premier educational stock-market simulation. Available in all 50 states, the SMG program teaches children core academic and investment skills. Students working in teams, invest a hypothetical $100,000 portfolio, choosing equities and mutual funds over a 10-15 week period. The program provides teachers with grade-specific materials to help students learn about saving, investing, and the economy.

The following is a description of the first core lesson in the SMG's curriculum of 13 sequenced lessons:

Lesson Title: What is a company?

This lesson uses the Hershey Chocolate Company to help students discover the advantages of establishing a corporation that will develop, produce and sell a new product. After the lesson students will be able to:

• Identify and describe the terms: company, corporation and partnership.
• Describe the benefits of forming a business to sell a product.

To learn more about the Stock Market Game program and its curriculum, visit www.stockmarketgame.org.

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