Junior Investors

This activity is appropriate for kids 10 - 15

Required: paper, pen or word processor and printer, art supplies.

Simply put your junior investors in charge of tracking your family's investments on a weekly basis, and your fortune will be made -- at least on paper. First give your children a dollar amount -- say, $10,000 -- to "invest" for the whole family. Your kids can pick stocks based on their hunches or their personal preferences. For example, teenagers who spend a lot of time on the telephone might want to sink a portion of the family nest egg into AT&T just for fun. Or they might want to invest in car or clothing makers. And an environmentally-minded family member might want to invest in anything except oil stocks.

Once the investments have been made, your kids can track the stocks they've chosen in the papers for a week. At the end of that period, they can use their math skills to figure out how much money your hypothetical portfolio is now worth. Then it's time to issue a weekly master report so the whole family can read the news -- good or bad!

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