To help students connect with and enjoy the financial literacy course material, The Blue Umbrella has developed an original cast of lovable characters known as the Nerdlz. Featured throughout the workbook, The Nerdlz Big Book of Money: Financial Literacy for the Young Mind, the Nerdlz serve as friendly guides who make financial concepts approachable, engaging, and fun for young learners. Through relatable stories, colorful illustrations, and age-appropriate lessons, the Nerdlz introduce students to essential topics such as saving, budgeting, earning, spending wisely, and setting financial goals. By combining education with storytelling and humor, the Nerdlz help build students’ confidence and curiosity as they begin their financial literacy journey.
In addition to the student workbook, The Blue Umbrella has developed a Teacher’s Guide, which contains in-depth lesson plans that align with the workbook. Each lesson plan provides step-by-step guidance, clear objectives, hands-on activities, discussion prompts, and assessment strategies that allow teachers to confidently deliver instruction regardless of prior financial literacy and entrepreneurship experience. The structure is practical and classroom-friendly, ensuring lessons can be implemented with minimal preparation while still maintaining depth and rigor.
Our lessons are designed to actively engage students through interactive projects, group collaboration, creative challenges, and real-world applications. Rather than relying solely on lectures or worksheets, students are encouraged to think like entrepreneurs by identifying problems, brainstorming innovative solutions, developing business ideas, pitching concepts, and reflecting on outcomes. This experiential approach increases participation, boosts confidence, and helps learners make authentic connections between classroom learning and everyday life.
Each lesson plan identifies the specific Indiana Academic Standards addressed within the lesson and also incorporates relevant Common Core Standards in Reading, Writing, and Mathematics. By including both state and national standards, the lessons are designed to be flexible, adaptable, and easily aligned with a variety of district or state curriculum requirements. This crosswalk of standards ensures that educators can confidently integrate the lessons into existing instructional frameworks while meeting required academic benchmarks.
The Blue Umbrella offers both student workbooks and a comprehensive teacher’s guide for purchase, providing educators and caregivers with all of the tools needed to successfully implement the program independently. This option is especially well-suited for homeschool environments, small classrooms, after-school programs, community organizations, and other small-group learning settings.
Because of its flexible format, the program can be adapted to meet the needs of a variety of learning environments and schedules. Educators may choose to implement the curriculum as a stand-alone enrichment program, integrate lessons into existing coursework, or use selected activities to supplement other educational initiatives. This level provides an affordable and accessible way for smaller programs to introduce students to entrepreneurship, financial literacy, and real-world career readiness skills in an engaging and hands-on format.
In addition to purchasing the student workbooks and teacher’s guide, participating programs will also have the opportunity to host an interactive Market Day facilitated by The Blue Umbrella. Market Day serves as the culminating hands-on experience of the program, allowing students to apply the entrepreneurial, financial literacy, communication, and problem-solving skills they have developed throughout the curriculum in a real-world setting.
Students will design and create their own refrigerator magnets, develop branding and marketing materials, determine pricing strategies, and build storefront displays to showcase and sell their products. Through this process, students gain valuable experience in creativity, teamwork, customer service, budgeting, and business planning.
Friends, family members, school staff, and community supporters will be invited to attend the event as “customers,” creating an engaging marketplace atmosphere that celebrates student achievement and encourages community involvement. Students will interact directly with customers, practice sales and communication skills, and experience the rewards and challenges of running a small business.
To recognize student effort and innovation, awards will be presented in a variety of categories, including “Most Money Made,” “Best Customer Service,” “Most Creative Branding,” and “Best Storefront Display.” The Market Day experience not only reinforces classroom learning, but also builds student confidence, leadership skills, and entrepreneurial thinking in a fun and memorable way.
The Blue Umbrella provides a fully facilitated program experience by leading both the instruction of the student workbook curriculum and the coordination of the culminating Market Day event. This option is designed for schools, after-school programs, community organizations, and youth-serving agencies that want to offer a high-quality financial literacy and entrepreneurship program but may not have the available staff, training, or instructional capacity to implement the curriculum independently.
The Blue Umbrella team will work directly with students to teach key concepts related to financial literacy, entrepreneurship, budgeting, marketing, customer service, communication, and goal setting through engaging, hands-on lessons and activities. By providing direct instruction, The Blue Umbrella ensures that students receive a consistent, interactive, and meaningful educational experience while reducing the workload on program staff and educators. In addition to classroom instruction, The Blue Umbrella will organize and facilitate the Market Day experience, where students apply the skills they have learned by creating products, developing branding and storefront displays, interacting with customers, and participating in a real-world marketplace simulation.
The Blue Umbrella recognizes that every program and student population is unique. For that reason, the organization will collaborate closely with program directors and site leaders to customize scheduling, lesson pacing, and program structure to best meet the needs, goals, and age levels of participating students. Whether implemented as a short-term enrichment opportunity or a longer-term program, this level offers a flexible solution for organizations seeking to provide impactful financial literacy and entrepreneurship education without placing additional demands on existing staff.