This awesome cart that was painted by our school art teacher. We are using this cart to house our school store items. This is the first year having a school store, and I volunteered to run it. I love all things school supplies so I knew this would be right up my alley!
Here is an inside shot of the items we have available.
As I am sure you can imagine, choosing items to sell, deciding on sale prices, and calculating profits involved some Math. I try to make a 30% to 50% profit on items. I chose items that were easy profit items but also popular with the students.
Here are just a few of the items we sell. I store them in craft boxes and clear plastic tubs by price to keep them organized.
I created a little freebie that mirrors the math I used when choosing items for the school store. The students use a school supply catalog or even an Oriental Trading Catalog to choose five items to sell in the school store. Then, the students record the unit price (I recommend allowing them to use a calculator if the unit price is not given on the catalog since this will involve decimal division that is more difficult than the average fifth grade decimal division), the chosen sale price, the calculated profit, the chosen quantity, and then the total profit for the item.
I think your students will love planning out their own school store! I know I can’t wait to use this myself once we get to Decimal Operations!
Do you have a school store at your school? What items sell the most?
We used to have a school store but the teachers all hated it because they sold mostly junk and things that distracted kids from learning. I would like to bring it back because I love the mathematical purpose in it but need to wait a year or two more I think before I will have teacher support.
Tara
The Math Maniac
Tara, I hear you! The things that sell well are the "junk." I try to get functional items only, but the kids just love the cute erasers and themed pencil sharpeners so I keep those in stock. 😀
Love the idea of a school store! I think as long as your store is more functional like erasers, pencils etc and less toys, slime, etc…. that it can work! Thanks so much for linking up!