Clever Dough Kids Academy is the creation of Amanda van der Gulik, who by circumstance fell on some rough times and took the opportunity to teach her children about money. She wanted them to know how they could make their money work for them, rather than having to work hard for their money and still not have any set aside, both for fun and for rainy days in the future. Read about our experiences as my children learn to earn, save, and invest wisely.
This post may contain affiliate links through which I may receive a small commission.
Clever Dough is an online program with downloadable workbooks, activities, storybooks, videos, audios, and more. It has components for the whole family; a book for parents to read to help them become familiar with what their children are learning and to help them give encouragement and support; information and advice for primary and elementary students; and helpful tools for teens as well.
Amanda has a clear passion about giving children (and teens) the skills and tools to set them up for financial success, even at a young age. This is not the first version of the Academy; Amanda has had previous versions under the name of Teaching Children About Money, and you can access the archived versions as well if you just can’t get enough information about this topic.
The course is broken down into twelve modules:
- Goal setting
- Allowance secrets
- Making money
- Value of money
- The 6 piggy banks
- Abundance
- Leverage
- 8th wonder
- Passive income
- Words are magic
- Plan of attack
- Making it fun
Each of these ideas are carried throughout the course. How many adults understand compound interest? Believe it or not, this concept is explained so clearly and simply that my eight and ten-year-old children understand it.
Learn to Earn
Children will be given lots of ideas about ways they can make money and will brainstorm many more of their own using creativity, other’s needs, and some ingenuity as well. You may find they become very enthusiastic about it. Van der Gulik uses six piggy banks to save for different occasions, including giving to charity to help others, and she doesn’t want children to feel like they’re without as there is also a piggy bank for spending on current desires.
Children don’t like to be told what to do so instead of us parents giving the lectures, van der Gulik becomes the mentor and guides children with her information given in video format. Through the chapter books with young characters, kids can follow along on the adventures and answer the questions about the stories for deeper comprehension as they learn to earn. For teens the videos are given in a more ‘grown up’ style as if they are in a workplace environment with flip charts and they can hear the interaction of the teen audience sitting with them.
Clever Dough Academy will have additional cartoons and webinars for further information and interaction in addition to the current extras available such as recommended books, games, and courses. And for those parents who want to teach their children first-hand about earning money, there is also an affiliate opportunity available.
Does Clever Dough Kids Work?
Yes, it does; my children have taken it to heart with many ideas (both realistic and fantastical) and they have their hearts and minds set on making money, not just for their dreams of opening their own business or becoming an astronaut to wanting to donate part of their earnings to support a refugee family that settled in our town, as well as giving back to TinyLife, a charity that helped us when Tristan was premature.
I can only hope that we have something left in our house as Kallista wants to sell as much as she can to raise money in a garage sale…and there were tears when she found out that there aren’t garage sales in the UK and that she would have to pay to sell at a ‘boot sale.’ We are trying to compromise by agreeing to sell some items through Facebook groups, selling some clothes by weight to a charity, and donating other items.
In the meantime, Kallista has been baking cookies and other treats and selling them to our neighbours and Phil’s colleagues prior to being confined to our house. She was even receiving requests and has had to pull Tristan in as backup when she received orders of 14 dozen the week before Christmas!
Tristan has designed a brochure of services he is willing to undertake and wants to distribute it to family, friends, and the neighbours. This may have to wait a little while until we find out what the new ‘normal’ will be, but in the meantime, he can hone his skills here at home. He’s made a deal with Phil to clean the interior of the car and do weeding for cash, and he’s learning how to do a couple of things here on my blog as well.
Their enthusiasm is contagious, and they also have a better understanding for the work that I do in my business.
We have all enjoyed working through this course and the information and encouragement it provides. There is a lot of information indeed, but it is given in such a way that it is made simple without children feeling like they’re being talked down to. The only thing that I could suggest is to have a checklist to mark each component off as they are completed so that nothing is missed. And also so parents can keep track of where their children are in the course so they can keep up with their part of the reading.
My children found the course quite reading-intensive, but they do enjoy reading stories so it was great that the course had the storybooks woven throughout it. Of course, an older sibling or a parent could read the stories to children, if reading isn’t their thing.
Amanda truly believes in the power of positive thought when it is combined with an action plan and followed through so get your vision boards ready and be prepared for your children to start earning their own money and putting it to work for them.
Check out these learn to earn posts by Amanda:
- How Do You Encourage Delayed Gratification…
- How Do You Get Your Child Excited To Do Their Chores?
- How Should Kids Set Their Goals To Make Sure Their Dreams Actually Come True?
If you’d like to know more on how to learn to earn or would like to follow Amanda van der Gulik, you can connect with her through their website, blog, Facebook, Twitter.
More Info On Saving Money
This review first appeared on The Old Schoolhouse© in June, 2018
