Baking Up Business Skills: What My 9-Year-Old Taught Me About Learning by Doing

As a college professor, I’m a firm believer in the power of experiential learning. My students don’t just sit through lectures—they engage in real-world projects, collaborate with industry professionals, and learn by doing. It’s one of the most effective ways I’ve found to help them retain knowledge and build skills that actually transfer into the workplace.

But recently, I’ve been reflecting on a simple question: Why are we waiting until college to introduce experiential learning?

This reflection was sparked by watching my 9-year-old son run his own small business: Silas’ Sweets. What started as a fun hobby quickly turned into an incredible learning opportunity. Through baking and selling his treats, Silas is learning how to communicate with customers, set prices, track expenses, calculate profit margins, and reflect on what worked (and what didn’t). He’s developing confidence, resilience, and problem-solving skills—not from a textbook, but from real experiences.

As an educator, I can’t help but see the value in these early moments of applied learning. It makes me think: how can we create more opportunities like this for kids? How can we build more experiential, entrepreneurial, and hands-on opportunities into early education—not just as “special projects,” but as a core part of how we teach?

Because whether it’s a bake sale or a college-level consulting project, the principles are the same: learning becomes more meaningful, memorable, and impactful when it’s rooted in action.

So I’d love to hear from others—parents, educators, entrepreneurs: How are you seeing experiential learning show up at younger ages? And what more can we do to encourage it?