The Kingdom Code Review

Are you wanting to teach financial, budgeting,  and entrepreneurship to your kids? For the last several weeks we have been using The Kingdom Code and their The Complete Starter Kit.

The Complete Starter Kit includes:

Student Textbook
Student Packet
Teacher’s Guide

I also received the JR Budget Kit and The Kingdom Code Coloring Book for this review. This was a bonus.

I think learning the skills to budget, be financially responsible with spending and saving money is something we should teach our kids. Giving them to skills to manage their own business is essential part that they will take into adult hood. Whether they are a business owner or not the skills will be beneficial in our everyday management of money. This is a fun way to teach those essential skills and what kid doesn’t want to earn some money in the process?

The Kingdom Code comes from a Biblical Worldview. The intended age is 4 through 13 however I think younger and older kids could benefit from this course.

You will also need 2 3-ring binders, divider tabs, and a few zipped bags for storage.

 
Student Textbook 

This is a spiral bound fully colored illustrated text with 240 pages. There are a total of 27 lessons. It is suggested for 45 minutes twice a week with the recommendation of doing 1 lesson a week.  However I feel it is adaptable to use with breaking it down in smaller sessions in the week with what works best for you kiddos. With that being said this isn’t an independent course and will require the parent’s assistance. After the 8th lesson your student can do some work by themselves but, I would be nearby to assist. 

A lot of practical advice from letters, historical stories throughout the Student Text.

 
The theme throughout this curriculum is knights which makes it really fun. It takes you through the process of brainstorming ideas of businesses that you can do. You have to consider the pros and cons when decided what kind of business you choose.  It’s a step by step process of running, saving, goals, communication, creating contracts, marketing strategy, and other aspects of kid entrepreneur. Throughout the text you are reminded to keep God in the forefront and character building.

There are symbols like shields, flags, treasure chest, scrolls, and magnifying glass to draw your attention to an activity or some important information you need.

The lessons are laid out in the same format. I’m just giving you a nugget in each area. There is so much more in each of the sections:

Proclamation: A few examples are, “I will do good things, so others will see what I do and praise Jesus.” I explained this to my daughter as an attribute we should strive for that reflects our Savior.

Check Your Path: This will give you the information about the worksheet you need to complete in the lesson.

Quest for the Clue: Sets up a theme and your goal for the lesson. There are stories from history, highlight form history, or from a business owner. You will learn some helpful advice as it leads to a clue you have to search for.

 

Code of Honor: This section is recommended that it be led by the teacher. There are scriptures that lead to character building and how you should conduct your business that honors God.

 

Treasure Seeking: You will continue to build on your goal following the theme for the lesson.  You may have a challenge like “Learn to know the difference between a need and want” or you read a story or letter. The main purpose in this area is to learn a skill to be a successful business owner and life application.

On Your Own: Activities and projects for your workbook. You may need to update your ledger, follow up on something. This area may be outside of the house.

Kingdom Keys: You are going to round up the entire lesson with a key sentence. Using what you learned in other sections.

Congratulations: A time to celebrate your hard work and placing your reward sticker on the TKC Treasure Map.

Bonus Code Work: This area is optional and may be something you do in or outside of the classroom.

Student Packet 

This is consumable and intended for one student. You have worksheets, flash cards, posters, forms, notices, activities, TCK treasure map, KCK receipt book, bonus reward stickers, and KCK budget stickers.

We spent a day going over the first several lessons and talking about her business.

A completed worksheet

I had my daughter draw out her business information.

All of your worksheets are in this area to go with each lesson. You will need to make sure you follow the instructions from the Teachers Guide to set up your student’s binder. This will make it easy to navigate each lesson.

All 27 lessons have flashcards to help with the vocabulary. They are numbered in the corner to help you find the correct one for each lesson. They have words like capitalism, transaction, debt, and other words to help your student with comprehension. There is even some Biblical vocabulary.

The map tracks your achievements and you can add stickers to the map

Another feature is your student has a full color map where they get rewards in stickers. There is also another set of stickers for budgeting. There are a lot of hands on features to make this a fun curriculum.

My daughters logo, brochure, and business card

All the activities vary from naming your business, creating goals, how to look and speak when approaching customers. You can create a business card, poster, or flyer for you business.

The activities will help with make telephone and face-to-face sales calls. It also teaches you to write thank you cards, giving tithes, and helping others. At the same time you are learning budgeting, balancing your money, estimating your money, income statement, net and weekly income, checking accounts, even things like impulse buying.

Also provided are several forms from several calendars to keep track of appointments you make or maybe you need to order supplies by a certain date.

Customer Sales Forms are provided that gives you the ability to keep information on each customer and their needs. It even reminds you to write the appointment in your calendar and to write a thank you note the first time you do a work with a first time customer.

My daughter added her business information to the ledger from the last 6 weeks

Other forms include a KCK Ledger, Income Statements, Treasure Builder Permit, and a few other helpful forms. You also have access to several other forms if you purchased the curriculum. 

KCK receipt book is also a carbon paper for your entrepreneur to give their customers for services rendered.

There are also three full colored posters to keep in your binder or to hang on the wall. 

Extras

The JR Budget Kit has a instructions for using it, sticker set, coloring pages, and My KCK Budget poster. It uses the acronym JOEYS for creating a budget plan. J-Jesus-O-others-E-education-Y-you-S-savings. This doesn’t contain the B sticker for business that is contained in The Complete Starter Kit. This might be a good way to start younger kiddos on a path of saving and even build up to starting a business as they get a bit older.

The Kingdom Code Coloring Book is a 32-page coloring book. It carries on with the knight theme. There are words underneath it to start teaching younger kids some of the concepts.

Teacher’s Guide 

The Teacher’s Guide comes in a set of lose leaf paper that is ready to put in a 3-ring binder. The first section gives you information on how to set up the Student Packet in a binder. It will give you step by step instructions on how to implement the program.  It explains each part of the program and the material used.

The next part is the lessons plan. Each lesson is covered in the guide in detail that is set up in two parts for the 2-days a week. Like I said you can easily adapt it to fit your schedule. It puts the parts in bold print so it’s easy to know that I need my student to read the Student Text or the KCK treasure map.  It will tell you what page if applicable. Also in bold are the important concepts taught in each lesson.

Also included  are the answers to all the worksheets and optional enrichment activities. Included are assessments or test. The other one is a feedback cards that will give your student a chance to evaluate their knowledge they have learned. You also have several blank forms like a ledger, follow up sales calls, and more. All the blank forms are also included in the Student pack. 

How did I use The Kingdom Code and their The Complete Starter Kit in my homeschool? 

I have been using this with my 16 year old special needs daughter. She actually has a business for almost 5 years now. Due to her learning challenges she doesn't always understand all the concepts. I thought this would be a great way to measure what she knows and to help her strengthen her current business.

Several years ago my daughter got her first beehives. Shortly after that she started "Bug's Honey Tree". Her nickname is Bug so the name is very fitting to her. At first she just wanted to sell honey. Eventually it turned into candles, soap, and homemade lip balm. Early on she found that candles and soap are a bit harder to make a profit and she decided to not do those any more.

After I set up the binders and read through several lessons I felt that I needed to start in the middle of the lessons. However I thought it would be beneficial if we breezed through the first several lessons.

My daughter did want to make up a business plan first. She thought it looked pretty neat on paper.

In lesson 7 she looked over her logo, brochure, and business card. She noticed that her brochure and business card had her first logo on it. Currently her logo is a black and white bee illustration. The color saves ink when we print it out. The next time we need to order and reprint them she will make sure the logo is the same on all three of them. She didn't realize how important it is to have all of this available to your customers.

Lesson 10 worksheet

We started in lesson 10 and talked about how we can help others. We went over her ledger and made sure she was confident in filling it out. The first activity was filling out a gift chart. Since she does tithe and give products to others we used the ones that she did in the last month already. She recorded the information on the chart. She wrote in out on her calender. Then afterwards she put a piece of paper stating how much money she would need for the next two months in her O envelope. She plans on buying gifts for her brother and dad and wanted to donate money to a local charity.

Next she figured out how to multiply 5%. Afterwards she did the Fun with Numbers activity which helps you to understand place value and comparing whole numbers.

As she progressed to the other lessons we talked about education and future career options. In another lesson we talked about having a good name and that what we do represents Jesus. We talked about different experiences we have had with business. She told me, "how we conduct are business is a reflection of Jesus." I think she gets it. We went on to discuss what is a need and a want.

We worked our way up to lesson 16. The Proclamation is "Instead of talking about making money, I will work hard to earn it. This lesson got a bit hard for her with learning about the two different types of business expenses-A Fixed expense and a Variable expense. The variable made sense to her because we have to buy things to put the honey and lip balm in. We don't pay salary from her honey business so it threw her for loop.

All of this is just an overview of what we have done. We have done a lot and learned a lot. The material is a perfect fit for her. Since she has been doing this for a while she now has names and more logic and education behind all that she does.

The Student Text is bright and fun to look at. The stories are interesting.

My daughter is working hard to earn money.

Running your own business takes time, commitment, and hard work.You have to plan for things like storage of supplies. She has to make sure that her beehives are healthy. That is really hard work going into the hives.  She also has to make sure she has enough inventory to supply her demand. Her supply is healthy enough that she doesn't have enough beehives to produce honey for her goods. She had to come up with a plan to purchase honey from another beekeeper so she has enough to last year around.

She has learned a lot from The Complete Starter Kit. It has given her a better understanding of all aspects of her business.

My daughters thoughts, "This has been really fun working my way through the lessons. I feel more confident about moving forward with my honey business." " I also understand the terminology better." "I've set a few more goals like getting my products in more stores this year. It keeps me busy but, that is okay." 

Then she said, "Can I thank the people who made these books! I have really enjoyed it all and can't wait to finish the book up. I don't want to wait till next fall to finish this up." So a big THANK YOU from my daughter! 

The Kingdom Code is offering a coupon code for 10% off. Use coupon code: 10TKC43

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