Grade 8 Business & Finance

32 of 36 lessons are MUST COVER. They are tested on the unit tests and exams, or are skills the SAT/ACT relies on. OPTIONAL lessons are enrichment. Do them if time allows. The course is complete when the MUST COVER lessons are done.

Unit 1: Economic Thinking

• MUST COVER 1.1 Incentives and Marginal Thinking: Plymouth’s Cornfields and the Water–Diamond Puzzle · unit test
• MUST COVER 1.2 Comparative Advantage with Numbers · unit test
• MUST COVER 1.3 I, Pencil: The Knowledge in Prices · unit test
• MUST COVER 1.4 Stewardship and Vocation: Wesley’s Three Rules · unit test

Unit 2: The Story of Money

• MUST COVER 2.1 The Florentine Florin and the Bankers of Florence · unit test
• MUST COVER 2.2 How Banks Create Money: Goldsmiths and Fractional Reserves · unit test
• MUST COVER 2.3 From Bretton Woods to the Nixon Shock · unit test
• MUST COVER 2.4 Hyperinflation: Weimar Germany 1923 and Zimbabwe 2008 · unit test

Unit 3: Markets

• MUST COVER 3.1 Market Structures in Depth: From the Wheat Pit to the Water Company · unit test
• MUST COVER 3.2 Antitrust: The Sherman Act, Standard Oil and the Bell System · unit test
• MUST COVER 3.3 Company Towns and Monopsony: Pullman, Illinois · unit test
• MUST COVER 3.4 The Limits of Central Planning · unit test

Unit 4: Great Businesses and Their Stakeholders

• MUST COVER 4.1 The Fuggers of Augsburg: The Banker Who Made an Emperor · unit test
• MUST COVER 4.2 Wedgwood’s Marketing: Royal Names, Showrooms and Catalogs · unit test
• MUST COVER 4.3 Ford versus General Motors: How the Leader Lost Its Lead · unit test
• MUST COVER 4.4 LEGO: Near-Collapse and Turnaround · unit test

Unit 5: Workers, Owners and Fair Rules

• MUST COVER 5.1 The Factory Age: Costs, Gains and Robert Owen’s New Lanark · unit test
• MUST COVER 5.2 The Factory Acts and the Fair Labor Standards Act · unit test
• MUST COVER 5.3 After the Crash: The FDIC, the SEC and Honest Disclosure · unit test
• MUST COVER 5.4 When Rules Backfire: Diocletian’s Edict and the Gasoline Lines · unit test

Unit 6: Entrepreneurship and Sales

• MUST COVER 6.1 The Business Model: The McDonald Brothers’ Speedee System · unit test
• MUST COVER 6.2 Financing: Bootstrapping, Loans and Equity · unit test
• MUST COVER 6.3 Consultative Selling: John H. Patterson and the Cash Register · unit test
• MUST COVER 6.4 The Pitch: Elisha Otis Cuts the Rope · unit test

Unit 7: Accounting

• MUST COVER 7.1 The Three Financial Statements Together · unit test
• MUST COVER 7.2 Ratios and Credit: Lewis Tappan’s Mercantile Agency · unit test
• MUST COVER 7.3 Audits and the Enron Collapse · unit test
• MUST COVER 7.4 Nonprofit and Church Accounting: George Müller’s Open Books · unit test

Unit 8: Finance

• MUST COVER 8.1 The Time Value of Money: Manhattan for Sixty Guilders · unit test
• MUST COVER 8.2 The Stock Market and Index Funds · unit test
• MUST COVER 8.3 Bonds and Interest Rates: Consols and Liberty Bonds · unit test
• MUST COVER 8.4 Insurance and Risk, the Capstone Pitch and the Family Market Day · unit test

Unit 9: Bonus: Run a Real Business OPTIONAL unit

• OPTIONAL 9.1 The Full Business Plan and the Investor Pitch
• OPTIONAL 9.2 Launch and Run: The First Two Weeks
• OPTIONAL 9.3 The Mid-Month Review: Measure, Learn, Adjust
• OPTIONAL 9.4 Close the Books: Statements, the Investor Report, the Profit Split and the Gift

From the course’s own 36-week pacing guide, with catch-up and review weeks added to fill a 36-week (180-day) year.

Grading: Projects (careful work, correct calculations and the improve-it step) 40%, Ledger notebook (dated pages, labeled tables with units, honest records) 20%, Unit reviews 15%, Portfolio projects 25%. Scale: A 90–100, B 80–89, C 70–79, D 60–69. Below 60: redo the project or review with help.