Middle School Program
JA It’s My Business!®
Through hands-on classroom activities, JA It’s My Business! encompasses entrepreneurship curriculum for students in grades six, seven, and eight. The program emphasizes entrepreneurship while providing a strong focus on social studies, reading, and writing skills. Students are encouraged to use critical thinking to learn entrepreneurial skills that support positive attitudes as they explore and enhance their career aspirations.
Following participation in the program, students will be able to:
- Apply their entrepreneurial skills to education, career, and service pursuits.
Session Titles and Summaries
Session One: I Am an Entrepreneur
Working in groups, students play the E-Quiz Game Show. They begin to identify entrepreneurial characteristics they possess by learning about the lives of successful entrepreneurs, both past
and present.
Session Two: I Can Change the World
Students work in groups to complete a blueprint for a teen club. Students identify the first entrepreneurial characteristic—Fill a Need—by considering customer needs and brainstorming product design. Students begin to identify the skills and knowledge needed to create a business.
Session Three: I Know My Customer
Working in groups, students recognize the second entrepreneurial characteristic—Know Your Customer and Product. Students practice ways to market specific products to the appropriate customers.
Session Four: I Have an Idea
Students participate in an auction designed to highlight successful entrepreneurs and their businesses, and focus on the third entrepreneurial characteristic—Be Creative and Innovative.
Session Five: I See a Need
By analyzing current examples of social entrepreneurs, students identify businesses they can start. They examine ways entrepreneurs use the four entrepreneurial characteristics to improve the lives of others.
Session Six: Celebrate Entrepreneurs!
Students create entrepreneur profile cards to showcase their understanding of the fourth entrepreneurial characteristic—Believe in Yourself.
JA Worldwide® gratefully acknowledges the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention for its dedication to the development and implementation of the middle-grades program JA It’s My Business! Grant No. 2004-JL-FX-K001, awarded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, and U.S. Department of Justice, supported this project.
For additional information on this and all Junior Achievement programs, please visit www.ja.org