Fall 2005 winning students and their teacher, Mary McKay (left) from Nathaneal Greene Elementary School in Chicago. Students are being recognized at the January awards reception hosted by the Chicago Board Options Exchange. Assisting in the awards (rear, left to right): Lisa Mullins, Chicago Tribune; Tom Smith, UIC Center for Economic Education and Martin Cabrera, Jr. of Cabrera Capital Markets, Inc.

The Stock Market Game™ program

The Spring 2006 Stock Market Game™ (SMG) session continues through April 28. Over 13,000 Illinois students are participating in the program this spring, managing simulated portfolios while learning curricular concepts.

Winning teams from the fall 2005 session in the City of Chicago were recognized at an awards reception held at the Chicago Board Options Exchange on January 19. Nearly 90 teachers, students and guests attended to recognize the first and second place teams in each of the four competitive regions in Chicago. CBOE President and COO Edward J. Joyce offered the welcome and comments. Assisting with awards presentation were Martin Cabrera Jr, Cabrera Capital Markets, Inc.; Lisa Mullins, Chicago Tribune and Thomas Smith, UIC Center for Economic Education. The spring session awards reception will be held on May 17 at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

A new grant from the St Louis home office of A.G. Edwards & Sons is allowing teachers in counties from Springfield and Decatur south to engage their students in the SMG at no cost. The grant provided funding for three teacher workshops this winter for first-time teachers in the grant's target area.

Day-long workshops in Belleville and Mt Vernon trained teachers in the use of the two new SMG curricula; Math Behind the Market, and Beyond the Market and Into the Classroom. A.G. Edwards representatives presented brief sessions at each workshop, discussing basic investment concepts as related to using the SMG in the classroom. At Belleville, veteran SMG teacher Natalie May (Wesclin Jr High) served as a resource, presenting a session using some of the materials she has developed. In Mt. Vernon, retired teacher Jane Snyder (Flora) shared her past success with the SMG. The days each concluded with an interactive computer lab session in which teachers went to the SMG site and learned how to access teacher resources and manipulate student portfolios.

An afternoon workshop was held in Decatur, facilitated by the Decatur branch office of A.G. Edwards. Marty Paul and Beth Metzler conducted the curriculum and computer hands-on sessions, while A.G. Edwards representatives discussed basic market concepts.

To view the complete list of recent winning teams along with first-place teams' portfolio summaries and PowerPoint presentations, go to: www.econed-il.org/new.html and click on the session of interest. For complete information on The Stock Market Game in Illinois, go to: http://illinois.smgww.org .

InvestWrite, an innovative extension of The Stock Market Game offering national competition, resulted in an Illinois student winner this fall.

Scott Joplin Elementary math teacher Cherie Francis (Chicago) engaged her SMG class in InvestWrite. Student Kyra Grant received 9th place in the grades 6-8 national competition. Cherrie and Kyra were honored at the January 19 SMG awards reception at the CBOE, and received special certificates of award and gift cards for their work.

Teachers are eligible to submit student essays when their teams are participating in the SMG. In the InvestWrite essays, students apply the knowledge of math, language arts and business to actual saving and investment principles. Students analyze the investment potential of publicly traded companies and the long-term importance of saving and investing. InvestWrite builds a bridge between classroom learning and the real world. To learn more, visit http://www.investwrite.info.

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