Having a student business has SO MANY benefits. Depending on what your product or service is, you have the opportunity to practice independence, money math, cooking, responsibility, and so much more! In this series, various guest bloggers (teachers & special educators) will share their tried and true experience of starting and running a student business for special education students. Hopefully, these posts will give you some great ideas or inspire you to start a classroom business of your own to teach students valuable vocational & life skills! Up next is a classroom that went from a coffee cart business to holiday gifts, to now a beaded bracelets business!
About The Guest Blogger:
Hello! I am Miss Daley. I just started my 9th year teaching and as I am sure you all agree it is the best job in the whole wide world. This year I am teaching “Transitions,” with a diverse group of students with mild/moderate and moderate/severe disabilities and autism. This is the first year of a transition program at our school and I am very excited about the opportunity to build this program.
How The Business Started:
I first started teaching at the high school three years ago. When I came into the school there was already a coffee cart student business. This was very fun and exciting for my students. We did this business up until March 2020 when covid hit. My students finally got to return to on-campus learning in October of 2020. It was so exciting; however, I was pretty disappointed because I was told that we could not run the coffee business due to COVID guidelines. I missed having a student business, as this was such a hands-on way to teach customer service, money skills and so much more. I was browsing Instagram one day and I saw some really cool wood slice ornaments, I almost bought one and then I thought well, that is silly, I can make this… Then it hit me again, even better if my students can make this! I presented my idea to my students and they were thrilled with the idea.
My students and I used a name generator to come up with the name of our business, (https://businessnamegenerator.com/). Simply Grizzly! As I mentioned earlier, we started with Wood Slice Ornaments, we sold these of course during the holidays and it was a huge success. We sold over 100 ornaments! We learned so much through this process such as the cost that it would take to make the product, we researched how much these products sell for usually (usually we looked at “Etsy”), and then as a class we came up with what we thought was a fair price.
At this time we sold only to staff members. We made a Google Form as a class and I sent it to all staff. We worked on the ornaments each day for about an hour during the last weeks of November, and the first weeks of December. All students had different roles depending on their strengths. Some students painted ornaments, some placed stickers on the ornaments (we have a Cricut machine), some students packaged the ornaments, and others wrote our “Thank You” cards. There was a job for everyone!
When the holiday season was over we felt so accomplished, but we missed our student business. We started throwing ideas around and we thought we could make Valentine’s Day cards. This was another big success! Again, Valentine’s Day came and went and we needed another project. We were chatting and brainstorming as a class and that is when we decided to start making bracelets. This has been our most successful project yet!
I will dive into more details on our bracelets because I said this has been our most successful project.
Administration:
It was pretty easy to get my administration on board, as they highly encourage the special education programs to have businesses in my district, so they were thrilled we found a way to keep a business going during “Covid Times”. Our business is considered a “Club,” associated with ASB (Associated Student Body). In order to make the club, we just had to do a club charter and appoint different members of the club, which we did in class. Being a member of the club is important because these students sign off on reimbursements and finances within the club. This is a wonderful leadership skill for my students.
Supplies & Cost:
The supplies for the bracelets are pretty simple! You need beads and string! We spent a lot of time on “Amazon.com,” comparing prices. We would do math to find out how much each bead costs individually and which beads are the best deal, but still nice quality. We realized that the cost of our product was pretty low. The average bracelet cost based on the beads we got was about $0.80 cents, and we were selling them for about $5.00. This was a huge profit! We decided to dedicate a little more money to the presentation on the bracelets so we also ordered small jewelry bags that cost about $0.08 cents a bag. We are now including an awesome sticker with each order and that is another $0.10 cents. Even with the additional items we are making a large profit!
Through trial and error we have learned to find the best string that is easier for the students to thread and also is good quality. Our favorite string is “Crystal Elastic String.”
Student Tasks:
The best thing about this business is that there truly is a job for everyone at every level in the classroom. Everyone has different strengths and challenges and it is important that the students are a happy and productive member of the Simply Grizzly Team.
- Designers: This is a whole class activity. We browse “Amazon,” and look for a variety of beads and find which we think would sell the best. We usually order a variety of beads and when they arrive we make a variety of products and vote on which we think are the best!
- Marketing Team: As a class, we brainstorm how we will market our product. Some students design posters and videos marketing our product! I have an Instagram account where I share what we are working on. I also send emails to the staff with our posters and videos (students help me write the email). This year we plan on hanging posters throughout the school as well as making announcements in the student bulletins. We send out our order form using a google form that is sent out to the teachers. This year we will also be selling them at both lunches for the students and staff to purchase!
- Production Crew: There are a lot of students who help with production. Every student at least helps in a small way. Making bracelets can be tricky and takes strong fine motor skills, so production speed varies. Many students can make 15+ bracelets in an hour, but for others, it takes an hour to make one bracelet. Some students even will hand the beads to a teacher/para educator to place on the strand. Every single bracelet is made with so much love. We also add a handmade thank you note to every bracelet made. Students who are working on handwriting often help with this task! Each bracelet is placed in a small cinch bag with a sticker. Students who have difficulties making the bracelets often help us place them in the bag!
- Treasure: We have a small group of students who are our treasures, they are in charge of counting money, filling out the deposit forms, and turning it into the office.
IEP Goals:
There are many IEP goals involved in Simply Grizzly. Our SLP loves Simply Grizzly, because it involves a lot of speech and language communicating with one and another as well as our customers. There are following direction and engagement goals, math goals, handwriting goals, and more! Honestly, the possibilities are endless on how to tie what we do to IEP goals.
Staff & Student Time Commitment:
This varies depending on the demand! At one time we had to make 500+ bracelets in a short amount of time so we were working on the business 2-3 hours a day; however, this was a unique opportunity we came across. Generally, I would say that we dedicate about 45 minutes a day to Simply Grizzly!
Final Thoughts, Tips and Tricks:
When you are creating your student business you will have a lot of trial and error. We went through many ideas before we found something that “worked for us.” Make sure you are doing something that both your staff and students enjoy to do together, this makes it so exciting and this makes it successful. Just like we love teaching, we want our students to love what they are doing.
You will probably have to help out a lot at first, do not worry the kids will get the hang of it! It is amazing to see how much faster my students have gotten at bracelet making, along with other DIY projects. It may seem stressful from time to time, but it is absolutely worth it. I could go on and on and tell you about how much fun we have together as a class and all the small details, but this would never end. I will just end by saying watching my students’ business grow and watching the students see their success is my absolute favorite part of teaching transitions!
Thank you so much for reading!
Miss Daley
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