THOUSAND OAKS : Entrepreneurial Fourth-Graders Show a Profit
The lessons of free enterprise came quickly Wednesday in Kathy Turner’s fourth-grade class.
Competition. Patent infringement. Product demand. Surly customers. Those were the pitfalls that troubled students in Turner’s class as they tried to hawk homemade products during a chaotic half-hour bazaar at Wildwood Elementary School in Thousand Oaks.
Zachary Elsea, 10, said the secret of success was sugar.
Zachary and his partner, Jason Kaminsky, 10, carved out a profitable niche at earlier markets by selling huge chocolate chip cookies.
“Lots of people were doing cookies, but no one else was doing giant cookies,” Zachary said. “We sold out in two minutes.”
On Wednesday, however, the partners’ non-patented cookies clearly had competition. Several other students also were hawking huge cookies, and sales for Zachary and Jason had slipped slightly. As a result, the pair cut their prices.
“If you’re the only one doing it, you can place it as high as you want,” Jason said. “But if we have competition, we lower it, or if it’s not going well we lower it.”
Despite the competition, the pair still made a healthy profit of $168 in school-issued scrip, thanks in part to the chocolate milkshakes sold along with the cookies.
Other students sold jars of potpourri, cups of mints, bags of popcorn, fake tattoos, snow cones, green origami frogs and decorated stationery.
“It’s pretty easy to make money because everybody buys everything,” said 10-year-old Tom Nicholas as he stood near the snow-cone booth.
Wildwood’s open market was part of a yearlong lesson in capitalism and civic duties that combines math, social studies and writing skills. Since September, Turner’s class, along with fourth-graders taught by Karen Buck, have created mini-societies of small businesses and elected officials.
Each week, the students get a $100 paycheck but have to fork over $50 for desk rental. Other costs include $2 to go to the bathroom during a non-authorized time, $25 for a business license and $2 for pencils and paper.
Students also can be fined $2 for being tardy, $5 for late homework and a whopping $50 each for showing dishonesty or disrespect. Losses can be recouped by doing extra classwork or on market day.
After each market day, the teachers helped students analyze any business problems they had. Wednesday’s topics included a line for the snow-cone booth that blocked another student’s display, patent infringement and rude customers.
