Building a Business

Title: Building a Business

Learning Context: This lesson will span multiple days- and lend to year-long learning for middle school self-contained students. Keeping in mind my students range from nonverbal, working on letter identification to beginning readers so the participation and assignments will vary for each student. During this lesson, students will apply real-life skills to their academics (reading and math). 

Activity: 

1. Students will brainstorm "business ventures" with a mock situation prompted by the teacher, discussing the lack of options in the teachers' lounge. Students will be given a set of criteria: a business venture must involve a physical exchange of money (no tap to pay), face-to-face interaction. (Scaffolding will involve a touch screen using images showing three options, including a "food cart" for teachers. 

2. After choosing a business venture (with teacher direction) of a "food cart" for teachers, students will brainstorm how to supply the food cart with the snacks that have the highest demand. They will then use Canva to create a survey for teachers to vote on their favorite snacks, and what they would like to see in the snack cart. Those who need it will use the touch screen monitor to drag and drop images of snacks from a set group of images (not all will be snacks- for example, a ball might be in there). 

3. Students will survey staff utilizing their communication skills. Ranging from everyday greetings (Good morning,) to speaking clearly and concisely. 

4. After surveying the teachers, students will compile the data. For some this will mean making a chart, counting and tallying votes, finding averages. For some students, this will be sorting images of votes into piles and counting where able. 

5. After sorting the data, some students will use Microsoft co-pilot to research. One will research market trends and sale prices, one will research marketing, and one will research nutrition. Students will come together to discuss their research and prices as well as which snacks are the most nutritious. (teacher will set actual prices after student-led discussion)

6. During art, students will design visuals for their business. One being a cart sign, one being a menu. Students with limited fine motor skills will be guided with Canva or a similar application to choose background colors and images (from a select group) to design the menu. 

7. After the construction of the cart, inventory will be done, and the cart will be stacked. This can involve all learners because some need fine motor help with putting objects in containers, some can count the objects, and others can write the inventory. 

8. Students will go to each grade level and use appropriate speaking and listening skills to sell their items and make change. 

9. After, students will inventory the cart, and make sure what was sold matches the amount of money earned. Higher learners will calculate the difference using a math problem similar to: If we purchased one box of 12 cheese for 15 dollars, we sold all 12 for $2 each, how much money did we make? 

10. Long term, students will (1) track what is sold and what isn't to determine what was popular. Those who are able can use higher-level thinking and compare to the initial research to determine if their research was accurate in the beginning. (2) continuously practice life skills of speaking, listening, organizing, data collection, and money management. (3) Determine in the end if the business venture was profitable. 

An example (and actually where I initially got the idea from) is in the youtube video linked.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKomYCHUN_ELinks to an external site.