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Archive for September, 2007

Made $167, Spent $169!!!

September 8th, 2007 at 05:58 pm

As some of you know, my 5th graders are trying to raise funds to go to Science Camp. The class as a whole is running their own "student store" business. Last year we just sold scented pencils. This year we've expanded to include a lot of cute pens, bookmarks, pencil sharpeners, etc.

Well, our first day of sales was last Wednesday. We didn't advertise like we did last year with signs and stuff. Just haven't had time at the beginning of this year to do that. All we did was one Monday morning announcement. When we set up at lunchtime, you could not believe the excitment. There were so many kids lined up to buy that we had to keep asking them to form a line as they were almost rushing the tables!

We sold $167 worth of stuff in that one hour lunch time! You have to understand that our BIG days last year were only in the $50-60 range! The biggest seller? The glow-in-the-dark, spooky Halloween pencils with HUGE monster erasers attached. We sold 49 of those! Almost unbelievable.

Of course, I had only ordered small amounts of each thing so I could see what would sell. That night I had to place another order so that we would have inventory for this week. It all should arrive on Monday. My students just about died when I told them that I had spent all their money, plus $2...hehehehe. They were asking, "Why? We need the money to pay for Science Camp!"

It was an excellent teaching opportunity to explain supply and demand, inventory, sales-cost=profit, not to mention introducing some math word problems based on their business. I'm sure the kids will be just as thrilled when they see the new items I've ordered for their store. I know the boys inparticular will be glad to get their hands on the glow-in-the-dark Halloween pencils.