Constable: These campers trading s'mores for Standard & Poor's

Children often come home from summer camp with memories of scary ghost stories around a campfire, an appreciation for s'mores and handmade friendship bracelets on their wrists. Kids at one select summer camp return with convertibles in their portfolios, an appreciation for leveraged buyouts and a handle on Standard & Poor's.

Promising to be "Fun, Exciting and Informative," the Future Investor Clubs of America now is accepting applications from kids ages 8 to 19 for its Wall Street Summer Camps the week of June 29 through July 3 in Chicago. With five camp levels, the most-experienced campers might be ready for International Financial Intelligence Training and sessions such as "foreign currency trading" and "global investment strategies." But it's not as if the 8-year-olds in the basic camp (BFIT) will be using glue guns and pipe cleaners to make old Clorox bottles into piggy banks.

"They are learning investing and starting a little portfolio," explains Frank Parks, a financial adviser who has worked for insurance and financial services including Allstate. He founded the Future Investor Clubs of America in 1997 as a way to introduce kids to the world of money. The Basic Financial Intelligence Training camps for the youngest kids teaches financial terminology, insurance, banking, financial planning, investment terminology, stock investing, annuities, bonds, mutual funds and more.

"We get the 8-year-olds whose parents are serious about getting them started earlier. We get the kids from households where the parents say, 'My kids should learn these things,'" says Parks, who is president and CEO of FICA. "And we get the Goldman Sachs, private-equity and hedge-fund kids."

The latter will need those skills when they start making money the old-fashioned way, by inheriting it.

"Some might already have a portfolio," Parks says. The 8-year-old with an investment portfolio is no different that a second-grader with a baseball mitt to Parks. Young athletes need training and hard work to compete at the next level, and so do future money folks.

"It's one thing to have Dad throw a ball around with you in the yard. It's another thing to have a coach," says Parks, who says young investors need to learn the fundamentals before they can play with the big boys. "Do they like learning about the six different kinds of risk? Yes, if you put it in the proper context."

FICA camp counselors are all certified financial instructors. The Chicago camps begin at 9 a.m. and end at 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. The total cost comes to about $900, For details, visit ficacamps.com or call (888) 320-9990.

One veteran FICA camper and junior at a suburban high school writes his own financial blog and tweets about crude oil prices, pharmacy stocks and foreign markets. He says his "favorite after-school activity" is watching CNBC Financial News.

"That is like the Super Bowl for financial kids," Parks says.

As a newspaper columnist, my financial aptitude peaked the day I transferred funds from the pockets of my Levi 501 jeans and into a company 401(k). Most of what I know about finances came from watching "The Wolf of Wall Street." Money, while much appreciated, bores me. Just writing the phrase "regression to the mean" makes me sleepy. Not those FICA campers.

"They get really excited," Parks says. "One told me, 'Well, I'm thinking about being a hedge-fund manager,' and he's 12 years old."

Just as other summer camp kids hike into the woods to gather kindling for the campfire, FICA camp kids take field trips.

"If we're talking about insurance and banking in the morning, in the afternoon they are going to insurance and banking companies," Parks says. "They are hunting for those companies that are successful in getting them the returns they need to build their portfolios."

There's no campfire, but there is a break for lunch.

"That's the time they can get some networking in," says Parks. "Some of these kids are going to do business with each other."

The camp website features photos of smiling kids and comments about all the "fun" being had.

"They may wear shirts and ties, but we're really not that stiff," Parks says. "We do have a FICA theme song."

I envision well-dressed mini-bankers clapping along old-school style as they sing, "There was a banker offering London Inter-Bank Offer Rates. And LIBOR was its name-oh. L-I-B-O-R, L-I-B-O-R, L-I-B-O-R and LIBOR was its name-oh."

But the FICA camp ditty (hear it at ficaradio.com) is a rap song that waxes about stocks and bonds, and praises the virtues of the time spent at investment camp. One memorable line notes, "FICA is how you get the bling on your wrist."

And they aren't talking about a friendship bracelet made with thread.