Mar 30, 2009

The Family Sweat Shop

On Friday, Silas brought home a school project. Let me start by saying that my only complaint with his teacher this year is that she sends home stuff LATE! This assignment went out to the entire third grade LAST Monday! We got it on Friday. Due Monday ... not much time! Anyway, to complete their unit on economics, the kids were asked to bring in 25 items to sell in their "store." The items could be store bought (pencils, erasers, snacks) or home-made (bookmarks, pictures); you get the idea. Well, being the parents that we are, Archie and I always like to think outside the box on school projects. I don't want my kid taking in the lame, run of the mill crap that all the others kids will bring in; I want mine to take in something neat ... something that he can tell his kids about in 30 years. Like the 3D Popsicle stick Spongebob that Silas made for his 100th day of school project in 1st grade! We quickly thought of and ruled out lottery tickets and my idea of having the kids donate to a "charity" and giving them an "I donated ..." card was quickly ruled out. (Yeah, I'm not sure they would have gotten the concept either.) We decided that Silas should make (produce) his items so that he could see the full span of economics. The best kit that I found was a little gem called Pet Pals Bucket from Perler Beads.


I'll spare you the details, but basically you place the little beads on the pegs of a template, iron the suckers together and voila! Well, let me tell ya. This was a time-consuming project. Did I mention that we needed 25 of these babies? We rallied the troops calling in Nana and the pseudo-Aunts. Our little sweatshop was running like a well-oiled machine. We got 25 of these beauties cranked out in about 4 hours.





All I can say is he better get an A!

13 comments:

Melissa said...

Sweet! Bethany did one of these in Preschool a month or so back. I'd never seen them before that! Hope he got his A!!

Happy Elf Mom (Christine) said...

He'd better get an A!! We did those bead things a bit ago and they're fun, but making 25 at a time is a bit... much.

T- said...

What a great idea! I think it is neat that you used it as a teaching opportunity.

Good work!

Jackie said...

What a good idea!!! Cute!

McCryssy said...

Umm.. Yea. He better get an A! Great job mama and all the worker bees :)

Shannon said...

What a great idea! I made those when I was a kid, super easy craft.

Heather said...

those are so cute. If I lived near you, I would have loved to help. I love that kind of stuff lol. Great job! He'll get an A!!

Laura said...

Now you have to remember to tell us if he got that A. Funny and wonderful that you all pitched in.

justdawn said...

Those are wicked-cool!!!

Way to go, Silas!

~LL~ said...

LOL....those things are a PITA to make! Truly!

For our 3rd grade project, H made door signs out of the foamy stuff....We didn't have to actually make and sell, but we had to "design" and market and advertise.

These signs were made of a rectangular piece with a 1/2 piece as a pocket. Then some 1/4 pieces with the words like "out" "eating" "doing homework" "sleeping"

We'll be doing it again next year, I"m sure. :)

Unknown said...

Love it! I used to make those when I was a kid. I loved them! They are fun. I think I'll be doing some with the kids in the near future.

WTG for thinking outside the box. We try to do that too.

Susan said...

Ahhh I want one!!! I love doing those with the kids at VBS however I now have the preschool kids and can't do it.. hmm might do it with my girl scout troop though.


And yes he deserves an A!

Stephanie said...

wow. they look great but that's a lot of little bitty thingys.