On Wednesday March 21st, we had the pleasure of welcoming two representatives from the Junior Achievement Program into our classroom. They taught us a variety of different things. First, they taught us that you can make money in different ways such as; selling goods, providing services or investing in a financial institution. They also explained how money travels through businesses, people and banks. They taught us that there are different types of bank accounts including savings accounts, checking accounts, retirement accounts and college funds. If you want to create a business, you can base it on your interests and skills. We also learned that you need to have a business plan, enough money to start a business, a product or service and target consumers. If you don’t have enough money for the start-up costs, you can go to any financial institution of your choice and ask for a business loan. Business loans are varied amounts of money that you borrow from the bank to start a business. You must return the loan within a certain amount of time. When you return the loan, you have to include interest. Interest is 1% of the money that you borrowed, so basically you give the bank more than they had given you originally. We also learned about international trade and bartering. Overall, we found this program to be extremely beneficial as we were provided with a wide variety of knowledge we hope to use in the near future.
Ms. Coniglio’s Grade 5 Class