Selling Seedlings

For the Entrepreneur Market, Year 3 made biodegradable seedling pots, complete with red, orange and yellow sunflower seedlings ready to be planted by happy shoppers.

They started off by writing a letter to Miss Reed asking for a loan to buy flour and sunflower seeds. She approved the request and with that they got planting straight away, wanting the seeds to start sprouting in time for the market day.

The students then got to work with the shredding of newspaper into tiny little pieces. It was a rather labour intensive endeavour but proved to be one of the most satisfying parts of the whole project, according to a number of the children. The newspaper bits were left to soak overnight in water.

The next day, flour was added to the water and newspaper to create a paper mache paste. It was time to get messy, and that they did! The paste was moulded around muffin cases and recycled yoghurt pots and left to dry over the weekend.

When the pots were dry, the seedlings were moved into them and labelled according to colour. The children then got busy writing a set of instructions to be given with each pot, detailing how best to grow the seedling.

The hubbub continued. Estimations of revenue and profit were made. Advertisements in the form of posters were created. Customer service skills were polished. Prices were eventually agreed upon (this was a controversial subject throughout the week). Job roles were allocated. Borrowed items were returned. Tables were set. Year 3 were finally ready to sell.

A healthy profit was made but, more importantly, the children had enormous fun completing this project, they experienced and practised a range of cross curricular skills and had rich discussions around entrepreneurship and recycling. A great success!