Second grade students at Steve Luther Elementary School got a lesson on both sides of the economic process last week during their Community Days project. The La Palma School is part of the Cypress School District.
Second grade students at Steve Luther Elementary School got a lesson on both sides of the economic process last week during their Community Days project. The La Palma School is part of the Cypress School District.
The two-day study session had half of the students working a model city of stores and businesses, while the other half moved through the various businesses as patrons. On the second day, the groups switched sides. Second-grade teacher, Ginger Alker, who borrowed the idea from the school where she was formerly a student teacher, proposed the project.
Luther Elementary has done the project on and off since 2003, but Alker said that the students and parents seem to get a lot out of the event. Parent volunteers are critical to setting up their model town.
“With the parents’ help in this district, it just goes above and beyond,” Alker said.
The students who are patrons spend 20 minutes at each business, rotating throughout the day. The eight businesses include a general store, movie theater, café, bakery, bookstore and even a DMV.
The patron students are required to keep a journal of their day where they record how much money they spent at eat business and what they purchased. They must know how much money they have to start the day and what they have left after a day of shopping. At the end, the students must write a conclusion of what they learned during their two days.
Most of the students seem to concur that being a patron is more fun than working. While patrons rotate through the town, the workers are assigned to one business and have to work that station the whole day. Parent volunteer Doris Denbi said that one of the students told her that he didn’t know working was so boring.
“I said,’welcome to real life,’” Denbi said.
Despite the tedious nature of the work side, Alker said that when the students are on the clock, they tend to work hard and take the job seriously. She said that a couple of the parents were a little late getting back from lunch on the first day, but that by the time they got to their movie theater station, the students had already set up for business and had the patrons in the theater and the movie running.
The project fits in with the second-grade Social Studies curriculum of Neighborhoods and Communities. But don’t tell the kids they are learing, they are simply enjoying their walk through the work force.
“The kids absolutely adore it,” Denbi said.