ALBERTA NEWS
Grade One Dog Biscuit Entrepreneurial Project
(3 grade one classes – Mckenzie Lake School – Calgary)
Preliminary Work:
Each teacher took time to discuss big idea concepts such as business, success, volunteerism, charity and community. We posed the question: If you could be an entrepreneur and run your own business, what would you do? Children’s responses varied greatly. We posed a challenge: Let’s think of a business that our class could create. Would we want to service people or animals? If we make any money, what charity would we give it to? The children wanted to create a business that centered on animals. They decided that they would like to donate to an animal charity. Decisions were made based on class discussions and votes. Many children expressed how important their pets were for security and love. Next, we asked the children to research some animal charities at home with their parents. Many families sent in suggestions and we finally chose to support a guide dog charity. We had recently been learning about 5 senses in Science and had discovered that people whose senses may be compromised could benefit from the help of a guide dog. Through more discussion we arrived at the idea of baking dog biscuits and selling them to people we know.
We had a visit from our BMO partner Karyn Betts. She discussed with the children what needed to be in place before you can start your own business. She spoke of such things as loans, market research and advertising. She asked the children what their ideas were and what they had planned so far. She gave them some ideas of what we needed to start planning to continue our project.
We decided we needed to have some money to start with to buy our baking supplies. We discussed with the children different ways that they may possibly earn money at home. We discovered that many children earned an allowance or did chores for payment at home. We asked if they would be willing to do a chore at home for $2 then loan it to the business, to be paid back after the sale. The children were quite willing to participate so we sent a note home to parents explaining the request. We now have some "seed money" to get started.
Where do we go from here?
Wednesday, Feb. 25
"Market Research"
Look at the recipe and look through flyers to find out how much ingredients will cost. See if we can find any pet flyers to see how much our “competitors” charge for dog biscuits.
Send home grocery store research homework.
Week of March 2-5
Visits from guide dog: March 5 @ 10:30 am – visit from Madox (guide dog in training)
Wednesday, March 4
Design a Logo Contest. Have each child work on a logo drawing and a slogan/business name. Teachers will collect all entries, narrow down to a select few then put it to the children for a vote.
Wednesday, March 11
Design Day – Each class will use the winning logo to create the following items needed for the project. Children will all get to be involved by coloring their class projects.
Young: Pre-order forms
Rankin: Advertising posters
Keener: Packaging for the dog biscuits. To fit over a sandwich size baggie, includes ingredient list.
Week of March 16
Baking/Packaging/Delivery -
Each class will bake biscuits with the assistance of volunteers. We
will bake enough to fill pre-orders and to sell at our school’s Celebration of Learning (evening of March 19th).
Total profit $1,130.63, approx. 6000 biscuits baked!
April 7
Visit from Susan with Alberta Guide Dog Services and Finn, one of the pups we will be sponsoring. Present cheque.
