Economics Project for Kids

My little Princess (OK...well...she won't let me call her that much longer because she's almost as tall as me...) is wrapping up with her last full day of school today and all the third graders are holding a "market" as an economics project.  A great idea for any school but I think it would be a fun excuse to gather homeschoolers together as well.  

Here is how it works.  

• Students can work in teams, pairs or on their own.  If they work in teams, then they can take turns shopping and keep their sale table open but they have to share the profits.  If they work alone, they keep all of their profit, but they must either wait until they are sold out or close their table while they go shopping. 

• They choose what they want to make.  They can do one items or many different things.  They should consider what their classmates might be interested in buying.  
• Everything they bring to sell they must make themselves.  
• They must track their expenses for producing the item(s).  
• They need to make a poster to advertise their products.  
• They need to set the price for their items, considering how much they need to make to cover expenses and how much they think their classmates are willing to spend on their product.  
• Students can bring no more than $5 to spend at the market. 
• The teacher supplies a little start-up change if needed but the kids must track how much they are giving and repay it at the end of the sale.  

Lots of responsibility and decisions to make.  

Some of the ideas from other students and past sales: cake pops, Rice Krispy treats, cupcakes, cookies (you can see where that is going right?!), pet rocks, Popsicle stick houses, artwork (drawings/paintings), tattoo rocks, tissue paper butterflies, origami animals, flower bouquets, clay animals, paper mache items, ornaments, hair accessories, bracelets, and on and on...but you get the drift...

My daughter chose to host an Arts & Crafts table where she decided to sell tissue paper flowers, pipe cleaner swords, foil boats, origami puppies, art sketches, and houses for collectibles (like Littlest Pet Shop, Squinkies, and Bizu's).  Even her classmates were wowed by her ambition, haha.  After a couple of weeks of sorta working on her projects when I reminded her that she had a lot of things to make, she weeded out the foil boats and sketches.    I got some pictures but not of everything because she was still cranking out origami puppies (oh and she decided to make some into kittens) this morning before school.  She even finished the last two in the truck on the ride there - hmmmm, I can't imagine where she gets that...

 Tissue Paper Flowers

She decided to sell her items for $.50 each - the swords were packaged in pairs for $.50 and the houses she decided took a lot more work so she made those $2.50 each.  Because most of her projects were simple items made from a couple of basic supplies and the houses were almost entirely out of recycled items, her total expenses came to $3.26.  If she sells everything she made, she has the potential to make about $22 after expenses.  Oh, and she said she will accept tips, lol!

I am eager to hear how this all goes and am really thinking this would be a fun thing to do with all the kids in the family at our fall family reunion weekend instead of the same old games were they win dollar store "stuff" that ends up getting broken before the weekend is over.  I know the excitement of all the kids in her class was very cute and funny when I dropped her off this morning but I do not envy her teacher trying to keep them all in hand until this afternoon's sale!