For JA volunteer opportunities, please visit: http://www.volunteermatch.org/search/opp974091.jsp Volunteer Opportunities change daily. Please contact a Junior Achievement Representative at (512) 499-8025 for the most current opportunity list.
Elementary School Programs (5 lessons)
The Junior Achievement Elementary School Programs include six grade-specific themes for kindergarten through fifth-grade students. These programs teach elementary school students the basic concepts of business and economics, showing children how education is relevant to the workplace. The sequential activities build on studies from each preceding grade and prepare students for secondary school and lifelong learning.
The six program themes also teach student that people assume roles as individuals, consumers and workers in an expanding cultural environment that extends from the self and family to community and global relations. Volunteers for the Elementary School Program spend about 45 minutes per week for approximately 5 weeks teaching in the classroom.
Elementary School Program Lessons (5 lessons)
- Ourselves® (Kindergarten) uses compelling stories read aloud by the volunteer along with hands-on activities to demonstrate helping, working, earning, and saving. Students are introduced to basic personal economic issues and the role individuals play as workers, consumers, and family members.
- Our Families® (1st grade) emphasizes the roles people play in the local economy and engages students with activities about needs and wants, jobs, tools and skills, and interdependence.
- Our Community® (2nd grade) explores the interdependent roles of workers in a community, the work they perform, and how communities work. Students take part in activities that demonstrate the responsibilities of and opportunities available to citizens in their economic community.
- Our City® (3rd grade) studies careers, the skills people need to work in those careers, and how businesses contribute to a city. Students conduct business operations, make city-planning decisions and examine economic development issues.
- Our Region® (4th grade) introduces the relationship between the natural, human, and capital resources found in different regions and explores regional businesses that produce goods and services for consumers.
- Our Nation® - (5th grade) provides practical information about businesses' need for individuals who can meet the demands of the job market. Further it introduces the concept of globalization as it relates to resources and careers, and the need for students to be entrepreneurial in their thinking to meet the requirements of business world.