On Dec. 3, third graders at Green Hope Elementary School hosted a market day where they were able to showcase their products. This market was a grade wide project and it allowed students to take on the role of being both a producer and a consumer. They were able to learn firsthand about the nature of supply and demand. Students worked alongside peers who were making similar products to discuss the differences and similarities between their businesses and pricing.
Students offered different services at the event, which ranged from explaining an exercise to using a polaroid camera to take a photo. As well as products that customers could buy which ranged from pet rocks to bookmarks. This allowed students to pitch their product and allowed buyers the opportunity to decide what they would buy given to them at the start of the event.
Green Hope’s Assistant Principal Ms. Nina Scott-Emuakpor learned that the elementary school’s third graders were hosting a business fair and informed seniors that they could go. Around 25 seniors decided to attend this business fair. Erin Sherlock (’25), one of the students who attended, expanded on the differences between this business fair and the one held at Green Hope in October. “The largest difference was the price and what you got was different as the value of the product varies,” said Sherlock.
At the senior business fair the goal was to make as much profit as possible while staying in stock for the duration of the fair. The students had a week to design and create their product or service.
The third grade team introduced the market day project by showing students examples of entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates. These real world examples helped students visualize the ambition and the creativity necessary to start a business but also showed them that it’s attainable.
Students were able to share part of their personalities in their goods and services they created. Because they wanted to make a product that was marketable to other people around their age they decided to choose and create products that they would want to buy.
In an interview with the GH Falcon, third grade teacher Ms. Abby Guza shares why they invited Green Hope Seniors to attend the market day “They loved having high school customers because they held themselves to a higher standard, and were delighted to hear all the positive feedback from the older students about what they created,” she said. “Interacting with high schoolers was equally as rewarding for the third graders as market day itself.”
Market day gave third graders hands-on experience in entrepreneurship and marketing. Through creating and selling products or services, students learned valuable lessons about marketing, competition and resource management. Seniors were able to learn about being a consumer and how to best spend their money.
