How do you teach your children how companies were formed to fund expeditions to the New World? You give them some money and show them how to buy "stock."
The girls LOVED this activity so much! I wanted them to understand what it would have been like (on a small scale) to become an investor in a voyage or settlement in the Americas. We read about it, but that didn't feel like enough to explain how this worked. So, with about 10 minutes of planning we took the words out of the books and made them real!
What I did: I put "treasures" in 6 gift bags. I didn't buy anything for this activity -- I just used what we already had around the house that may or may not have had much value. Use anything -- marshmallows, nickels, apples, pencils, a juice box -- really anything! I made sure that some bags were more valuable than others.
Each gift bags represent a different voyage. The girls are offered the opportunity to invest in the voyage by bying a stock certificate. This makes them an investor in the "company." Whatever was in the bag (whatever gains resulted from the voyage) are divided among the shareholders. The gains could be valuable, or the finds could be fairly fruitless. In one instance, the ship was lost at sea in a storm and I didn't reveal the contents of the bag. However, the investors lost all their money!
This REALLY didn't require much work, but the girls had a blast and learned several things:
Investment comes with risks.
The more shares you own in a company, the greater the gains AND losses.
Explorers and colonists had a lot of pressure to find valuables to send back to their investors.
History can be fun!
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