Teach students and kids about careers with these 19 free worksheets and lesson plans. Career exploration for students to do.One of the most important reasons behind a formal education – besides teaching your students how to think for themselves – is to get kids ready to take on an engaging and exciting career. Show
And a career? Well, that’s the foundation to any person being able financially provide for themselves – what we call, financial independence. That’s why I take a real interest in helping kids, tweens, and teens get the best fun career exploration activities resources out there. So that one day, they can find a fulfilling job and be able to earn enough money to not only survive, but thrive. What all is involved in career exploration for students? To be honest, there’s a lot to cover here. You want to provide fun and engaging activities for topics like:
Whew – that list wasn’t meant to overwhelm you. Rather, I wanted to inspire you with what an important and life-changing topic you’re covering with your students and kids. Plus, to outline some of the areas you can cover with these fun career activities and resources I’ve found for you, below. Career Exploration for Kids – Free Career AssessmentsFirst up, let’s talk about how to get your kids and students actually interested in career exploration activities. There’s no better way to pique a student’s interest than to find out what THEY are most interested in learning about. One way to do this is to start off your unit of study with free career assessments. 1. Truity.com Career AssessmentI spoke with the people at Truity.com, and they said a good age minimum to take their free career assessment is 14/15 years of age. The test is free to take, plus you get a basic report with results. You don’t even need to have a student register for them to do this! However, if you want to be able to view each of your student’s results, you’d have to sign up for a Pro account. 2. CareerOneStop’s Career AssessmentThis free, 30-question career quiz from the U.S. Department of Labor will help a student figure out some possible career choices. 3. O*NET Interest ProfilerAnother career assessment test sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor is O*NET’s interest profiler. There are 60 questions in total.
4. CommonLit Career Day at Pixie AcademyAge: 4th Grade Here's a reading passage that's centered around some great career and job terms. The theme of the story is Pixie finding a new job. Assessment questions and a teacher's guide are included. Career Exploration Worksheets for StudentsWhile I don’t recommend you center your entire career unit around career exploration worksheets, the ones below can definitely add to students discovering jobs, industries, etc. 1. Find Your “Right Now” JobSuggested Grades: 6-8 Scholastic has some fantastic worksheets and lesson plans to help with career exploration for students. In the “Find Your Right Now Job” worksheet, students will research jobs and apprenticeships around their area of interests to find two jobs that they could apply to (when they're a bit older). 2. Career Research WorksheetHere’s a simple, one-page worksheet you can get for free with a free account on Teachers Pay Teachers. It will help focus your student’s career research. 3. Career Family TreeThis free worksheet of fun career activities has an idea that I love – for students to create a family career tree. They’ll need to ask family members and do the research, which of course is a great way for kids to understand their loved ones even better (plus to learn a thing or two). 4. Classroom Job ApplicationWith a free Teachers Pay Teachers account, get this simple classroom job application your students can fill out to “apply” for classroom jobs. 5. Earning Income Career Earning WorksheetBizWorld has this free, simple worksheet to help your students research a career and salary information. 6. Collection of Career Exploration Worksheets (9-12 grades)Here’s a bunch of different career activities and worksheets for grades 9-12. Worksheets include:
Career Lesson PlansLooking for more than just career preparedness worksheets? Check out these enter career lesson plans, available for free. Hint: many of them include both worksheets and videos. 1. PWC’s Earn Your Future Digital ClassroomCheck out Level 3 (for Grades 9 – 12), Module Chart Your Course. It talks about:
2. BizKid’s It’s a Job to Get a JobDownload an entire lesson plan for high schoolers that include topics like:
3. NGPF's Career UnitThis is a full-year course, with the following units:
4. Louisiana Department of Education's Virtual Workplace ExperienceThe state of Louisiana has come up with these free resources to help students explore careers in LA's highest-demand industries. These are project-based learning activities. Honestly, there's a ton here. They've broken it down into the following units:
Career Games for KidsThese career games for kids and teens create an engaging way to teach career awareness. 1. Career CharadesAge: 7-9 years Students are asked to brainstorm lots of different careers (it's suggested that they can ask parents, grandparents, and others to come up with ideas ahead of time). Each student writes these ideas onto a piece of paper, and everyone takes turns acting out a career while others try to guess what they're doing. Great for better awareness about career options! 2. Claim Your FutureStudents select different career paths, are given a typical salary, and then are given various spending choices. The amount of money they spend throughout the game is tracked so that they can see, and make any adjustments as needed. 3. The PayoffSuggested Age Range: 14 years and older Practical Money Skills has come up with another free online career game, and this time it's all about two teenagers trying to start up a business in a competitive atmosphere. Students will have to evaluate business deals, learn how to grow their business, and how to overcome financial challenges in business and in life. 4. Auction Adventures – Auctioneer Career Game for KidsSuggested Age Range: Grades 3-5 Being paid by commission is wayyyyy different than getting a salary (or, even, being paid hourly). You have to actually sell something to make any money! This game has your students calculate their commission rates while, at the same time, learning about how auctioneers work in a variety of different places. Here's a set of worksheets to go along with this game. 5. The Uber GameLike it or not, the “gig economy” where people are not full employees of companies, but still accept gigs from them and earn a small or substantial amount of money on the side, seems to be here to stay. So, kids should understand how this can fit into their career and money plans! The Uber Game gives your teen a scenario, such as they have a $1,000 mortgage payment due in a week, and then asks them to try and earn enough money through accepting gigs in order to pay that bill. Can they do it? Is it hard or easy? Can they sustain themselves on a gig job?
Career Research for StudentsWhen students research a career, they need to look at it from several different angles before deciding if it’s possibly on their “Career Hitlist”. Here are the different things to research for a career:
1. How to Research a “Day in the Life”You want your students to feel what it’s like to be on the job in a career path they’re researching. Help them to do this by:
2. How to Research Income InformationWhile it used to be difficult to figure out income averages for a career or job type, it’s quite simple nowadays thanks to some seriously great, free, resources provided by the Department of Labor. Here’s a one-stop salary finder, where you enter the occupation and your location to get an idea of the average pay. It also offers a listing of professions, so students can click around by career cluster (or category) and just explore.
3. Lessons to Understand Paycheck Taxes and DeductionsEverFI has free financial literacy lessons for kids and students, and Lesson 3 is on income and taxes. Students will be given different ideas about careers, as well as the pros and cons to each. The following two tabs change content below.
Amanda L. Grossman is a writer and Certified Financial Education Instructor, a 2017 Plutus Foundation Grant Recipient, and founder of Money Prodigy. Her money work has been featured on Experian, GoBankingRates, PT Money, CA.gov, Rockstar Finance, the Houston Chronicle, and Colonial Life. Amanda is the founder and CEO of Frugal Confessions, LLC. Read more here. Is the Career Explorer test free?CareerExplorer is a free platform for users to assess their interests, personality types, abilities, career values, and preferred work and social environments in order to find matches that will lead to satisfying careers.
What are some career exploration activities?The five best career awareness activity ideas for middle school are:. Interest & preference questionnaires.. Aptitude surveys.. Classroom speakers.. Job shadowing.. Mentorships.. How can I help my teenager find a job?Here are some top tips on how to help your teenager decide on a career.. visit museums.. watch documentaries.. go to the zoo.. sign up for a sport they like.. take a painting lesson.. do anything and everything that helps broaden their horizons.. What is the best career test online free?Free career aptitude tests. My Next Move: O*Net Interest Profiler. ... . 123Test.com: career aptitude test. ... . What career is right for me?: career aptitude test. ... . Truity: The Big Five Personality Test. ... . MyPlan.com: various tests. ... . CareerExplorer: career test. ... . CareerFitter.com: work personality analysis. ... . Assessment.com: MAPP Career Test.. |