Throughout the month of October, our School-age 3 children have been learning to be business owners! This savvy business minded group has made many shops over the month, including, but not limited to, making a ‘mini shop’, an electronic and gaming shop, and they even incorporated holidays in these shops, specializing in holidays like Halloween and Christmas. The only thing they didn’t include was money, adding a layer of learning experience to the store as any customer who wanted to purchase something from one of the shops had to make or bring their own, though to get around this some of the shops included pin machines so customers could pay by card. This proves that the real-world influences children's play so much as the children engaged in real-world dramatic play scenarios.
Brielle and Harper have been among the forefront of these shops, setting up their place at the horse-shoe shaped table, and starting on a sign to indicate what sort of shop they were having each day. Once the theme was established they worked together to create the items to sell. Brielle became very skilled at creating mini items, going as far as to create items to go inside the mini Items- she made a candy pouch that had tiny scraps of coloured paper inside that represented candy! Purses were made to open, and when they worked on the electronics and gaming store she made chargers and gaming consoles to keep everything running!
These shops became so popular that a new theme was selected almost every day. We tried to keep as many of the materials as possible that were made, though, so that the children could continue to set up and run an existing shop if they desired.
Through designing and creating these shops the children have learned about teamwork, business, and entrepreneurship! Thank you, School-age 3, for this month of wonderful business makers of the future. We can't wait to see what happens next with these shops.
