Mills Elementary School students become producers, consumers for a day
PARRISH -- Standing inside a green booth, 8-year-old Gabriella Barfield's poked her head out, her eyes darting around, looking for her next customer.
"Snowman bags," she called out. "Snowman bags!"
With the low price of just $4, Barfield hoped the bags would be a big seller amongst her third grade classmates at Virgil Mills Elementary School on Friday morning, who each had $100 to spend.
"Our bags are better than the other bags," Barfield said, moving into sales mode, showing off her product, a white paper bag decorated with construction paper and markers to transform the plain old sacks into the perfect carrying case for gifts.
In addition to the snowman bags, students could purchase reindeer food, yarn trees, penguin poop, Christmas cards, a guardian angel, Christmas ornaments and puppets from the classmates.
Each year, the third-grade students learn the basics about economics, including marketing, advertising and supply-and-demand. Right before winter break, students put the economics lesson to the test, hosting a "shopping mall" inside the cafeteria at the school.
Dozens of parents, teachers and students meandered around the shopping center, with students closely guarding their $100, discussing their decisions with their parents, figuring out what to purchase and how much it would cost to buy one or two yarn trees. ($5.25 for one tree, $10.50 for two).
Students in the nine third-grade classes are split into groups. They're charged with brainstorming a product, creating it and shooting a commercial to advertise their product. Then, the students actually create 100 products, ranging from Christmas cards to penguin poop, and design their booth. The "shops" are set up around the cafeteria and the students take turns selling and buying the products.
One of the most popular booths on Friday was the pet rock shop. Ella Evans and Lily Frye ran the booth for the first half of the day Friday, quickly selling out of their 50 pet rocks. For the price of $4.25, students could have their very own low-maintenance, hassle-free pet. The girls advertising campaign featured a catchy jingle to entice more buyers.
"They're very popular," Frye said, while the girls waited for the shift change, to be able to go out and purchase goods of their own.
While the students shopped for presents and clamored loudly over their shopping spree, they were learning valuable lessons, said Ashley Allgire, one of third-grade teachers.
"They're both producers and consumers today," she said.
The students learn about buying and spending, managing their money, making change on the spot and teamwork.
"We teach them about making choices," Allgire said.
Meghin Delaney, education reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7081. Follow her on Twitter @MeghinDelaney.
This story was originally published December 20, 2014 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Mills Elementary School students become producers, consumers for a day."