My Dad (Kids' Pa Pa) as a Guest Lecturer in Finance

Since both Collin & Carson requested to learn more about Finances, and Collin specifically the Stock Market, I asked my Dad (a former professional Financial Planner) to be a guest lecturer for his grandkids. As I expected, he was quite excited for the opportunity, and took the task seriously to prepare a talk. We were able to schedule a Zoom lecture on Thursday, Apr 9th as their last class before the 4-day Easter Weekend.  One of the challenges he expressed in advance was constructing a lesson that was going to be informative enough for our high school student, while not loosing our 2nd grader. I told him it was mostly for our older boys anyway and Marin would learn what he could.

Dad shared a great example to explain market values and percentages:

He showed 3 Dollar bills. Dad said between Feb 19th & March 23rd (the low and highs of the recent market) the market lost 33% percent or a third of it's value. But in order to get back to the original high he asked how much it would need to come back...50%.  Simple math?

$3, loose $1. Now you only have $2 and half of that ($1) is needed to get back to $3. Great example in simple terms! 

Carson from the kitchen table	Collin from his room
Marin raises his hand to ask a question & show Taco asleep	So maybe the lecture put the cat asleep, but the rest of the boys stayed awake and learned something!

Each of them on their own Ipads, while Mike was on a Zoom meeting himself, made for a noisy household.  Marin may have been more interested in Taco falling asleep than the content of the lecture, but I think the other two benefited greatly and I love that they've been able to talk to their grandparents virtually through all this.

Here is an example of an invaluable and timely lesson my kids likely would not have learned had they been in regular school. Am I sad they're not seeing their friends? Of Course! And do I still think Public school is good for them? YES, but we are going to make the most of our situation, and I hope they can learn as much as possible. Not just the schoolwork their teachers assign, but life lessons and enrichment they won't get in a traditional classroom. I'm SUPER thankful to have my dad be a guest lecturer and eager to teach!

If you're home teaching your kids, I encourage you to think outside the box, ask your kids what they would LIKE to learn, and see who in your circle would be good and willing to teach... You don’t have to do this all alone!