The Wonder Jewelry Shop

Welcome to The Wonder Jewelry Shop.  A couple of days before our Thanksgiving Break a few of the children started making paper purses in the art studio.  What began as one or two a day soon became a mass production.  When they realized they had such a large number of purses, they decided that the best thing to do was to open a store.  The shelves in the science lab were cleared off, and stocking merchandise began.  A few children suggested other accessories that might be sold in the shop, though purses continued to be the main attraction.

When we returned to school six days later, merchandise production went back into full swing.  As soon as the store was named, the very fancy sign seen above was designed and posted by the “door.” Two cash registers, an old keyboard, two old phones, and a mouse were added so the store employees could “work.”

One of the children informed us that purses with short or no handles are called bags.  These were placed directly on the shelf for display.  The longer handled purses are displayed on the walls of the shop.  I wondered aloud how a customer might know how much to pay for a purse.  So far the consensus is that whoever is selling the purse will just tell you how much it costs.

I was informed today that the Wonder Jewelry Store will have a Grand Opening at 2:00 on Thursday.  I’m not yet sure what this entails as the spokesperson did not give me any details.  Although, in the last three minutes of class, I did hear a rumor that lipstick might be on sale soon!

Want to know who is allowed to shop in this exclusive store?  Here is a soundbite the children made earlier today.  I just found it on Seesaw a minute ago:


And I found more!

I just found another clip on Seesaw.  This one was obviously designed as a commercial.  Note, adults did not have anything to do with the recording.  The children use our class iPad to document their learning and share it with their parents.  Near the end, you can hear an adult nearby suggesting that jewelry and purses are not actually gender bound.  Our voice-over artist isn’t so sure.  Sounds like a great place to start a discussion.

Voting, Counting and Shopping

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Although our Halloween inspired classroom store has been open for over a week, it only just occurred to our students that the venue really should have a name.  Following Pre-K tradition, an assortment of name ideas were collected on Monday’s Morning Message.

Voting for favorites in Pre-K can be kind of tricky.  Often, they’ll vote multiple times and not necessarily for their own favorites.   Naturally, this activity lends itself to modeling and practicing.  We suggest that the children sit quietly for a moment as they listen to the list of choices.  We offer, “Tell yourself in  your mind, like talking inside your head, which store name you like the most.  Keep it there in your brain so you will be ready to vote for your favorite.”

(One of our goals here is to explicitly model and practice consciously using an inner voice to process a decision.  This is not something four and five-year-olds regularly do.)

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Next, we give each child one small stone.  This stone represents their vote.  Since each child has only one, the system helps the children visualize and physically practice the one-to-one correspondence inherent in voting.  The list of options is read aloud one last time and each child turns in their rock to cast their preference.  The students count each option’s results as they are collected.  We also model and provide guided practice with the one-to-one correspondence involved in counting the votes.  Sometimes, we purposefully slow down or pause counting to model what happens when we don’t assign one number to every object.  At first, children typically keep reciting the counting numbers regardless of the number of objects present.  After much practice, though, they are keen to our trickery and pause their counting right along with us.

Tallies are used on the original list.  We choose to use traditional, basic tallies without the cross-over at five.  This early in the year, we’d rather they noticed that each line represents one object instead of puzzling over why one line is crooked.

When all votes are collected an tallied, we have a final vote between the top two contenders.

As you can see,  The Haunted Halloween Store held and obvious victory.  Now, on to re-stocking the shelves!