With college costs high and job outlooks low, many students and graduates decide to start their own businesses. And to help students build an entrepreneurial mindset, several organizations and think tanks are encouraging an entrepreneurship education plan down to as low as elementary-level students. Whether or not your child will decide to go the entrepreneurial route, there are many benefits to learning What Makes an Entrepreneur!

This free lesson plan from EconEdLink.com (Economics and Personal Finance Resources for K–12) takes a look at entrepreneurship. Here are some of the avenues explored:

• Owners of businesses.
• The different types of business owners.
• Case study of one entrepreneur.

The lesson plan includes an interactive quiz and encouragement to interview an entrepreneur as part of the assessment:

Upon completion you should write a short essay on the entrepreneur. The essay should include the characteristics the entrepreneur has shown, the reason they went into the line of work that they are currently doing as well as any other information that is relevant to the topic.

Great lesson plan to encourage your student to pick up skills that can be used in any future career! And it’s free!

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Additional Resources

Productive Alternative to a Gap Year: Run a Business!
The lesson plan fits very well with this idea.