Little Launchers is proud to announce the launch of its Little Launchers Educators Guide.
The Little Launchers book series is the first children’s picture book series that showcases the true stories of real kid entrepreneurs who have started and continue to manage real businesses.
In the Educators Guide, teachers can find classroom exercises aligned with Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts. With this curriculum guide, teachers are able to integrate business education in their classrooms using nonfiction picture books that feature real kids with real businesses.
The guide is aligned to 2nd grade Common Core Standards, but can also be used as a starting point for other grade levels, should a teacher wish to customize the exercise.
The book series has been integrated in classrooms across the country—and world. Perhaps no other state is doing it better than author Erica Swallow’s homestate of Arkansas, where the non-profit business education organization Economics Arkansas first actively introduced the series to teachers in 2017, the year the books were published.
Since then, Arkansas teachers have applied the books to K-5 entrepreneurship and business education across the state. In Magnolia School District, in Southwest Arkansas, students participated in a month-long Little Launchers curriculum introduced by East Side Elementary School 2021 Teacher of the Year Jessica Talley. Students read a new book each week, learned about entrepreneurship concepts, created and sold real products (donating the proceeds to charity), and participated in a “KidVent Fair” invention challenge. Talley won an Economics Arkansas Bessie B. Moore Award for going “above and beyond” in developing this outstanding economic and personal finance project and integrating it into the classroom during the 2020-2021 school year.
“My vision for this Educators Guide is that it will be a jumping off point for more young readers and future business leaders to access entrepreneurship education,” says author Erica Swallow. “I am so inspired by the work teachers and education organizations have already done with the books, developing their own curricula to meet local needs. This guide is meant to celebrate, encourage, and further that work.”
The Educators Guide is available for download. Download it now to get started in your classroom!
