Students Leap Into the Stock Market

Capitalistic energy pulsed in the multipurpose room of Westlake Elementary School on Thursday, as students turned entrepreneurs invested in the school’s “Stock Market Sale” program.

The room was filled with pretend stock brokerage companies, adopting slogans such as “We’ll double your money” and “Our stocks go up, not down,” as students bought and sold imaginary securities.

Students from accelerated fourth-grade classes created the fake companies. Then, students in other math classes--armed with $15,000 to invest--bought stock during two days of sales. The game will end in June, when the groups that have made the most money are declared the winners.

Fourth-grade teacher Lesly Vick said the exercise teaches students a number of skills, including developing company slogans and portfolios, tracking stocks, learning how to write checks and grasping mathematical concepts such as converting fractions into decimals.

“It’s a way to make math relevant to them and it makes them think things through,” Vick said.

One of the most important skills the children learned was teamwork, since the most successful groups will be those whose members work together well, she said.

“I tell my kids you don’t have to like everybody, but you have to work with everybody,” Vick said.