Open for Business!

Last Friday, I opened our first bank and store of the 2011-2012 school year! Students had filled out their "payforms" the day before, so everyone knew how much they were getting paid for the month (they are paid once a month - the last Thursday of the month - store is on the last Friday of the month). I will have to take a photo of one of their completed payforms and post it here so you get a visual. Each student has the potential to earn $25/week: $5 for excellent behavior, $5 for all HW completed, $10 for doing their classroom job, and a bonus $5 if all of the above. That means that every student has the potential to earn $100/month. However, only one did this month (Yay Jaedon!!!)! I would definitely like to see more than one student earn $100 this month.  : )

In order to minimize disruption to academic instructional time, I decided to do our store during lunchtime.It actually worked out beautifully. Most of my students bring their lunches from home, so at our regular lunchtime, they took out their lunchboxes, while the few kids who buy their lunch went down to the cafeteria (and came right back up to class). I put on a movie (okay, it was Spongebob!) to keep them relatively quiet while I called three kids to the back table at a time to make their purchases. We were pretty much all done within 30 minutes, which was just perfect.

Some of the items purchased include (from least expensive to most expensive):
lollipops
mini notepads
tiny bowling set
lunch in the classroom with up to three friends
be a Mystery Reader

I reminded my kids that the first store usually has "lower end items" because they've only had one month to accumulate their money so only the cheap stuff is out! If they save, then they'll be able to purchase bigger and better items at the end of October! Of course, everyone bought something (I understand the idea of money burning a hole in your pocket), but most saved at least some of their money for next store opening.

I have been doing a Classroom Economy of some form for the last four or five years now, and I think I have finally worked out most of the kinks, and the current incarnation is pretty good! I hope the kids are enjoying it!