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EEA 2021 Lesson: Selling Plants to Help the SPCA

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VIRGINIA ECONOMIC EDUCATOR AWARDSSmithland Elementary SchoolHarrisonburg City Public SchoolsMichelle HuntM a r i a B i lli n g sAuthor:Selling Plants to Help the SPCALESSON PLAN 2021

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LESSON DESCRIPTION:First graders run a plant sale to raise money to buy supplies for the SPCA. Through this project, the students learn and experience many economics concepts such as goods and services, producers and consumers, saving and spending, and making economic deci-sions, as well as integrating many language arts and math concepts. Finally, the students also model good citizenship and helping others through their donations.This project improves economic knowledge and financial literacy in many ways. It is an opportunity for students to create a product and sell it to customers. They learn how to run a business from start to finish. They learn financial literacy by better understanding how much items cost and how to budget a set amount of money when they purchase donations for the SPCA. ECONOMIC OR PERSONAL FINANCE TOPICS:• Goods and Services• Consumers and Producers• Economic Choices• Saving and Spending • Counting MoneySOLS:1.7 The student will explain the difference between goods and services and describe how people are consumers and producers of goods and services.Author: Lauren Shifflett & Laura Sunder-Rao | Elkton Elementary SchoolAuthor: Michelle Hunt & Maria Billings | Smithland Elementary SchoolLEVEL:ElementaryMATERIALS:Plant Grow LightsTrays to hold plant cupsCupsSpray bottles for waterSoil and seedsSticker dots for pricingStudent writing journalsLink to materials: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1k4gHFWxckxaagpbJpCup08fZ1sdM5pvbTIME REQUIRED:8 weeksSelling Plants to Help the SPCA

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1.8 The student will explain that people make choices because they cannot have every-thing they want.1.9 The student will recognize that people save money for the future to purchase goods and services.PROCEDURE:Weeks 1-3 Planting, Growing, and Caring for Seedlings• During week 1, we introduced this project to the students by explaining and showing pictures of what the SPCA is and why it is important to help them. We also outlined the whole 8 week project with the students so that they understood what we would be doing each week. Also during week 1, we brought in seed packets to show the students. We explained what each packet said about how long it takes the seeds to germinate as well as how we need to care for them. The students chose which seeds they wanted to plant based on how much time we have to grow them and if we could easily care for them in a classroom until the sale. • During the end of week 1 and throughout week 2, we planted the seeds. The students labeled each cup with the type of seed they would plant in the cup, filled the cup with soil, planted the seeds, and then watered the soil. We also placed some seeds on wet cotton balls inside of baggies and hung them in the window. This allowed the students to see the beginnings of seed germination and the roots that began to grow. The students completed journal entries about how they planted the seeds and what types of plants we were growing. • In week 3, the students continued to water the soil as needed and completed journal entries as seedlings began to sprout to label the parts of the plant they could see. During week 3, the students also used recycled materials to create posters showing and labeling the parts of a plant. Weeks 4-6 Continuing caring for seedlings and advertising for plant sale• In week 4, most (if not all) of the seedlings had sprouted and were growing nicely! Once they sprouted, the seedlings were moved under plant lights to keep them growing or near classroom window sills with plenty of good sunlight. The students continued to water the seedlings and help rotate them under the plant lights for even growth. Each week, students completed journal entries documenting the growth of the plants and labeling the plant parts that have grown. • During week 5, the students made posters to display on the tables at the plant sale. The posters showed pictures of the plant, the name of the plant, and whether it was a vegetable, flower, or herb. They also created flyers to advertise the plant sale. The flyers included the date of the sale, drawings of plants, and what the money would be used for. • In week 6, the students prepared for the sale. First, they hand delivered their flyers about the sale to teachers and staff members around the building. This also allowed them to practice oral language skills as they spoke to teachers and answered questions about the sale. Next, the class worked together to decide on prices for each plant. We talked about wanting to put a high enough price on the plants so that we would make enough money to buy the SPCA supplies that we wanted, but making sure that the price was low enough that teachers would want to buy the plants. We interviewed a few teachers to see how much they would want to pay for our plants. We settled on prices between $0.25 and $2.00 depending on the size of the plant. The students wrote the prices on colorful dot stickers and put them on each plant cup. Finally, we worked together to count how many of each type of plant that we had to sell. This served as one of our first big projects using tally marks! At the beginning of week 6, we sent a Google Form to the teachers and staff in our building asking them to sign up forAuthor: Michelle Hunt & Maria Billings | Smithland Elementary School

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Author: Lauren Shifflett & Laura Sunder-Rao | Elkton Elementary School times to shop at the plant sale and to sign up for what types of plants they would be interest-ed in buying. As we shared the data we collected with the students, we compared the num-ber of teachers interested in different types of plants with the tally marks showing how many plants we actually had to sell. We realized that we would not have enough of some types of plants to accommodate all of the teachers that were interested in them. We asked the stu-dents how they could handle that situation during the sale, and taught them what it meant to tell someone that we were “sold out” of something. At the end of week 6, the students also created thank you notes to give out to each person who bought plants from the sale. The note said “Thank you for buying plants and helping animals.” and had drawings of the plants and animals at the SPCA.Week 7 - Plant Sale• Week 7 was our plant sale! We set up tables in the hallway between the first grade class-rooms. On Monday morning, the students helped us carry all of the plants out to the hallway and arrange them by type on the tables. They placed the posters they created about each plant on the table in front of that plant. We also set up an area for the cashier. We used the school’s cash box so that we had change to give back to customers. We had a donation jar next to the cash box. We also set up clipboards where the students could write down the name of each customer and how much money they spent as well as to mark how many of each type of plant we sold. We explained to the students that it is important in business to keep track of the money you make as well as the goods you have sold and have left to sell. • We opened the plant sale three different times each day. We only had 3-4 students from each class running the sale at one time, so we chose times of the day when other adults or assistants would be available to do activities with the rest of the class. We rotated students so that all students had opportunities to run the sale. During the sale, the students wore signs that said “producer” and the customers were encouraged to wear stickers that said “consumer”. Some students were in charge of selling the plants and helping the customers put the plants in boxes or fast food drink carriers that we collected to help people transport the plants they bought. The students were supposed to explain the types of plants we had for sale and talk to the customers about what they were buying. Other students helped with cashiering. The students were guided and helped by a teacher at all times with these jobs, especially since some parts of cashiering were a little advanced for first graders. They used calculators to add up the prices of the plants being sold, counted the money given to them by the customer, and helped to count out change to give back. The students were com-pletely responsible at the cashiering station for writing down the name of the customer and the total that they spent, marking down how many of each plant the customer bought, and handing them a thank you note before they left. The plant sale was over on Thursday as we were almost completely sold out of plants! • On Friday of week 7, we made tally charts, picture graphs, and bar graphs of some of the types of plants we sold. The students also completed a quiz on Seesaw using pictures of our plant sale to demonstrate what they learned about goods and services, producers and con-sumers, and spending and counting money.Week 8 - Economic Choices, Spending, and Donating• During week 8, we wrapped up our project by making economic choices to buy animal sup-plies and donated them to the SPCA. Due to Covid restrictions, the students could not visit the SPCA as we would have liked them to. On Monday, we had a Zoom Call with the Market-ing and Fundraising Manager for the SPCA. She told the students about the mission of the SPCA., told them about the current needs of the animals at the shelter, and even showed them a cat that was looking for a home! She answered all of the questions that students still had about the SPCA. • Next, we sorted pictures of the animal supplies into things the shelter is low on and things Author: Michelle Hunt & Maria Billings | Smithland Elementary School

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they currently have. We reviewed the concept of making economic decisions by showing the prices of each supply (according to Amazon) and helping the students see that we did not have enough money to buy all of the supplies. The students chose what items we would buy with our money. We discussed how we needed to purchase the things the shelter doesn’t have right now first, and then we could pick out some extra things that would be nice for the animals to have. The students completed a journal entry about the supplies we should buy. After the students completed their list of the supplies they wanted to buy, the teachers took the list to the store and bought the supplies. • On Thursday, the students got to see the supplies that were bought with the money they raised! We sorted the supplies into boxes and decorated the outside of the boxes. Thursday evening, the teachers took the supplies to the SPCA for donation. We took many pictures of the donation process and of the SPCA. and animals. On Friday, the students looked through a slideshow of pictures from the plant sale and of the donation process that they were not able to see at the SPCA. They then completed their final journal entry to share what they learned from this project. Author: Michelle Hunt & Maria Billings | Smithland Elementary School*More photos and instructional materials uploaded to your Google Drive!

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ASSESSMENTStudent learning will be assessed in many ways throughout this project. They will be giv-en quizzes each week on what we did that week to show mastery of the important con-cepts. The will be observed in class discussions throughout the project as well as in their interactions with customers at the plant sale. Finally, they will complete journal entries each week to write and draw about their learning. Quizzes given: • Seesaw Economics Quiz• Graphing and Tallying plants sold• Quiz on tally marks based on number of plants sold• Verbally stated reasoning for the economic choice for what we purchased for the ani-mals• Plant Life cycle quiz• Plant Part quizEXTENTION• Field trip to the S.P.C.A.• More practice with counting money• We wanted to do more follow up after the plant sale including what plants sold well, and which plants shouldn’t be used in a future plant sale.• Ask for donations or write grants to get the supplies at the beginning of the projects and have the students budget money for grow-lights, soil, seeds, or other materials needed to “start our business”.Author: Michelle Hunt & Maria Billings | Smithland Elementary SchoolSmithland Elementary SchoolHarrisonburg City Public SchoolsMichelle Hunt Maria BillingsSmithland Elementary SchoolHarrisonburg City Public Schools