Grade 9 Covenant Christian students learn about real life work at Mini Mall event
Grade 9 students at Covenant Christian have experienced a real-life business opportunity selling their own products to their peers at the school’s annual Mini Mall event.
This year’s student businesses were selling candies, sundaes, pancakes, slime kits, and even entry into a petting zoo set up outside the building.
“It’s a nice event at the end of the year in grade nine for kids to finish off with a bang,” says teacher and organizer, Colin Ward, “and they all remember what they made and what they did and where they failed. So, it's real life learning.”
Grade 9 students are in charge of creating advertisements around the school for their products. They are also challenged to consider the other important factors involved in running a business like health, safety, and labour; with part of their assignment being the creation of an environmental impact statement for their business.
“I feel like I’m learning how to be an entrepreneur,” Grade 9 student, Samuel, says, “and how to balance between making the customer happy and making a profit.”
The highly anticipated, school-wide event has been hosted for over twenty years, tying into the economics unit of Grade Nine social studies. The whole process aims to teach students about supply and demand, scarcity, advertising, and consumerism, in a real life setting, expanding on the theory learned in the classroom.
“It’s tied directly to our curricular outcomes, but more importantly, it tends to build a good community event,” Ward says. “Kids talk about it, kids anticipate it, kids look forward to it.”
“I like the rush of it,” another Grade 9 student, Courtney, says, “It’s really fun.”
Student consumers purchased products with tickets through an online catalog on Powerschool: five dollars for a book of 10 tickets.
This money is used as a fundraising opportunity for the grade nine graduation but it also gives younger students the chance to learn a little about financial literacy before it is their turn to be on the other side of the sales table.
