Money Management & Finance Skills with The Kingdom Code {A Curriculum Review}

As homeschoolers, we all know that a well-rounded education contains more than just the 3 R’s. In fact, in my home, it’s well known that all children are required to have a basic understanding of life skills that my husband and I feel are necessary. A big one for us is money management and money skills. We want to ensure our kids graduate with a basic understanding of what money is, why it’s necessary, and how to use it properly. And while my plan was to wait a little while longer, when my daughter and I learned of The Complete Starter Kit from The Kingdom Code we just knew we wanted to review their money management program, from a Biblical perspective.

What Is The Kingdom Code?

The Kingdom Code is a Biblically-based money management program that is geared towards students in grades four through eight. The goal of the program is to teach kids how to properly manage money and also teaches entrepreneurial skills as well. Throughout the 27 lessons, students will learn about moral character and work ethic, financial skills and responsibility, budgeting, and even marketing. This program is designed to be used twice per week and will last 34 weeks. It has a midieval theme full of knights, armor, shields, treasure, and more to get kids excited about learning.

The Complete Starter Kit contains everything you need to get started. It includes:

• Student Textbook – A 244-page spiral bound book containing budgeting, economics, history, entrepreneurship, consumer math, and Biblical application.
• Student Packet – Including the treasure map, flashcards, posters, stickers, and receipt book.
• Teacher’s Guide – 132 pages containing everything you need to simply start teaching The Kingdom Code program including lesson plans and answer keys.

There are additional items available on The Kingdom Code website as well including a 32-page coloring book and a junior budgeting kit for younger learners who are also interested in the program.

Getting Started

While the student textbook is a spiral bound book, the other items in the kit are not. The pages in both the student packet and the teacher’s guide arrive wrapped in plastic and need a little bit of set-up from you.

Luckily, both of them are already 3-hole punched.

The first one you are going to want to work on setting up is the teacher’s guide. This guide contains all of the information you will need to help your children learn the key points of the program.

I set up my teacher’s guide in a 1-inch 3-ring binder being careful to leave all of the pages in order. Beginning on page 5, the guide will let you know what other supplies you need (including additional 3-ring binders, divider tabs, folders, clear pencil cases, and small resealable bags). Below that are the directions for setting up your children’s KCK (Kingom Code Kids) binder – which I will tell you do not attempt this while you are working on other things. While the directions are relatively straight-forward and easy to understand, there are a lot of steps.

Your completed KCK binder will include everything your child needs to apply what they are learning in the student textbook. And as long as you head the warning to not mess with the page orders, it should be completed quickly.

After assembling your KCK binder, Part 3 of the teacher’s guide explains the student textbook. You will learn that each lesson will have 8 main sections:

• Proclamation
• Check Your Path
• Quest for the Clue
• Code of Honor
• Treasure Seeking
• On Your Own
• Kingdom Keys
• Congratulations
• Bonus Code Work

Additionally, many lessons will contain additional elements such as historical fiction, letters from Aunt Jimmi, flags, scrolls, treasure chest, and more.

Part four of the teacher’s guide goes into detail on how to use the essential elements of the program. This will help you to ensure your child gets the most out of this program.

The majority of the rest of the teacher’s guide are lesson plans. These plans lay out the materials you need for the lesson, give you an overview of the lesson, and list the essential question and learning goals. They are broken up by day and each lesson clearly states how many days the lessons should take.

I say should because there is nothing wrong with continuing on if your child is excited and motivated to continue. And on the flip-side, if they need additional time that is perfectly acceptable too. The main thing to remember is the day and time allotment are suggested guidelines. Making sure your child learns and grows should always be your main focus, regardless of the time used.

In addition to receiving The Complete Starter Kit, the team at The Kingdom Code also provided me with The Kingdom Code Coloring Book and the JR Budgeting Kit.

Letting My Daughter Learn

My primary student for this review was my 8th-grade daughter. While technically at the high-end of the age range for this program, she is naturally drawn to creating her own business. This budding entrepreneurial spirit has helped her in the past when she needed to raise funds for interests she has. Not one to shy away from an idea once it has bloomed, I felt this program might be just the key to helping her grow both her business-minded spirit, as well as her Biblical foundation.

Initially she was a little disappointed with the program. In fact, after the first lesson she stated that it was babyish. While I don’t agree with her, I don’t disagree either. Based on the six lessons she and I have worked on, it does seem to be created with a younger kid in mind.

However, by the end of the sixth lesson, she was telling me that even though she doesn’t love all aspects of The Kingdom Code, she’d like to continue using it. While it may be geared towards younger kids with the worksheets and activities, she’s loving the skills and knowledge she is learning. Plus, she’s able to complete most lessons independently in about 30 minutes. So for her, it’s something quick, fun, and different.

Six Weeks of Money Management with The Kingdom Code

After our Complete Starter Kit arrived I set out to organize the binders and get myself familiar with the program. The teacher’s guide is a great item to have, but it did take more than one read-through to understand the set-up and components of the program. However, each time I read through it, I felt more confident in our ability to use the program.

As my daughter is older and ridiculously motivated, much of her learning occurs independently. She is a student who prefers to work that way and often completes her work early in the morning. After getting myself familiar with the program I sat down to explain to her how to use it.

We did decide to work on the first lesson together. We read through the first lesson in the student textbook titled Path to The Kingdom Code. This lesson is less about learning new ideas and money management and more about learning how to use the program. It explains the proclamations, how to check your path, and gives the first clue to the code. The Code of Honor for this lesson is Be Financially Responsible and uses Romans 13:7-8 to help emphasize that. We decided to complete the worksheet together as well but quickly realized that for a 13-year-old who is used to working independently, she’d be OK to continue that rhythm. Afterwards, we’d talk about the lesson and review the materials before she moved on.

So armed with her student textbook and student binder (containing the worksheets, activities, and more) she set out to learn about The Kingdom Code.

Lesson 2 is titled Prepare to Build Treasure. This lesson is all about understanding that a person must choose to work. Work is necessary, but not everyone has to choose to work for others. The lesson then goes into some detail about entrepreneurs and what an entrepreneur is. However, with all decisions in life, we should seek God’s will, so the Code of Honor for this lesson is Seek Wisdom using both James 1:5 and Proverbs 19:20.

This lesson also covers two aspects of the American economy: capitalism and free enterprise. And the treasure builder reminds kids that Kingdom Code Kids think differently. Kingdom Code Kids manage their money wisely so they can help others – creating a business is not all about our own earnings. It’s looking for ways to bless others whether it’s sharing in a skill, helping out a neighbor, and I even through tithing in their as well.

Lesson 3 is all all about entrepreneurs and building a business. In this lesson kids are taught about supply and demand, having the courage to step out into the field God has called you to, using choice to find good opportunities, and finding a good mentor.

Lessons 4 and 5 cover the creation of a business plan. This is where your child will begin to create their own business, even if it’s only on paper. This is where they are allowed to dream and plan, but also given the tools needed to create a real business. Through the brainstorming activities in the prior lessons through the business plan creation and surveys in this one, a business is blooming.

Lesson 6 was the final lesson my daughter worked on, as this was a review. The worksheet for this lesson included questions from the five previous lessons and this was a great place to her to wrap up her time with The Complete Starter Kit. Yet, as I mentioned earlier, she has been inquiring about continuing on with this program in the fall.

So, What Business Did She Create with The Kingdom Code?

The one most teen-aged girls create, of course, babysitting! Granted this was something she thought about months ago, but it was a natural business for her to create with this program. Her market research told her should could reasonably earn $3-$5 per hour for a single child. She also learned that most people are only looking for casual childcare, not long-term (her market was other homeschool Moms and her siblings) so she realized she would need more than one client. Another business need would be a planner to track who she is working for and when, so as to not double-book herself. We also created a poster for her to hang up at local stores for advertising and marketing purposes.

Time For a Younger Audience

So before we dive into this section, I need to give you a little disclaimer:

Pages in the student binder, budget binder, and any page you are to write on in The Kingdom Code are consumable pages intended to be used by only one student.

However, for the purpose of this review, reviewers were given special permission to use The Complete Starter Kit with multiple students. So I tried. I sat down with the student textbook and student packet pages with my 8-year-old to see how he fared with the material. My goal with him was to do less writing and activities with him then are included, but to see how the program worked with a younger student.

Where the first lesson was too easy for my daughter, the same lesson was too challenging for him. So the next day we slowed down and aimed for just a page or two. With much better results, we approached the additional lessons the same way, a page or two per day, a couple of days per week.

With this approach, he did not get nearly as far into the program as my daughter did, but he has already decided his business of choice is a lemonade stand.

He did, however, enjoy the TKC coloring book that was also provided for this review. (Oh, and he is still technically a little young for this program, which is recommended for ages 9-13.)

Final Thoughts on The Kingdom Code Complete Starter Kit

This product definitely has more to it than meets the eye, and this review barely scratched the surface. I think I would need several thousand more words to share all that your child will learn with The Complete Starter Kit
from The Kingdom Code! And while the first part of the program requires some getting used to, the easy-to-follow format for subsequent lessons allow you to feel confident in your skills, and your child’s, after just a few lessons. My daughter and I both began this review excited when the product arrived, felt overwhelmed in the beginning, but by lesson four felt we had a good groove going. More importantly, the lessons were practical, easy-to-understand, and relevant, teaching both to the character of the child as well to their entrepreneurial spirit.

More importantly, with The Complete Starter Kit from The Kingdom Code I know I will be teaching my children money values from a Biblical foundations. With upcoming lessons to teach them the principles of tithing, creating a money plan and keeping books in order, establishing a plan for savings (and acquiring a bank account), defining an earnings goal, and spending wisely, this product hits all the right notes for money management education for the middle grades.

Want To Check Out The Kingdom Code For Yourself?

You can always visit The Kingdom Code on their website, or on social media.

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Something Special Just For You!

The team at The Kingdom Code is offering readers of Hope In The Chaos a 10% discount on their online purchases of products from The Kingdom Code. Simply use the coupon code 10TKC25 at check out.

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