Baltimore, MD - Dec. 20, 2017 - The annual Math and Science fair buzz had started at Cheder Chabad of Baltimore. When the fourth grade girls were asked what they wanted to do for the math part, they answered “Make money to buy stuff”. Little did the girls know that they were going to be taken seriously by their teacher and given a chance to make a business on their own and give all the proceeds tzedakah!
A step by step negotiation and planning erupted amongst the girls until they had the perfect plan: “Simple” they said, “bake cookies, make hot chocolate and sell them, then we will have money”. It may not have ended up as simple as it sounded but here’s what happened next:
The first question we had was, who would buy our cookies? How would they know to bring money? “A flier” shouted Fayge! We can design a flier. We learnt basic skills of editing, writing, imaging and advertising on our smartboard and made our very own flier to be advertised and sent home to all the students!
Next was to use our smartboard again as a class to choose a recipe for sugar cookies. The problem was that the recipe only made 12 cookies, surely not enough for our grand plan. That’s when we realized that we had no idea exactly how many students to plan for. We, as a class, wrote an email to the school secretary, requesting class numbers of all those invited to the fair. Using rounding and estimation, we planned to make at least 120 cookies, which meant 10 times each ingredient. So one at a time, we multiplied each amount accordingly. Then we went online and found out exactly how it was sold as sugar isn’t sold in cups…7-Mile Market’s website, gave us all the choices of products, we needed to convert the cups to pounds and choose the most economic box or package of sugar for the amount we needed. “This is real in-depth math” Said Luba. Slowly, methodically and over two classes, we were able to use estimation, fractions, conversions and decision making to make a detailed shopping list with total estimated cost of $69.
But how were we to get money to pay for this!” Ah ha”, the girls said “we could just write a letter to our principals to lend us the money”. So off we went to the smartboard and wireless keyboard to sit down as a team to draft our proposal! We told them how much money we thought we needed (with an additional $5 for just in case), how we planned to use it and eventually to give it back. Within minutes, we got a reply “Absolutely incredible. YES, YES we will provide you with the $70. We will be in touch about the details. Thank you for all your hard work.” Said Mrs Matusof. Mrs. Tenenbaum even offered to be the second driver to take the entire class to Seven Mile.
So we had our plan, our shopping list, and our money and now it was time to get to action! Off the whole class went to 7-Mile market. We learnt about sales and how we saved money on some items we didn’t expect to. But when we were there, we also realized some items we had forgotten, like napkins, cookie cutters and storage bags. With all the changes, economic choices, the girls were standing in suspense as each item was scanned at the till. $79, we were very close! Rivka told her mom that afternoon “Mommy, it’s real life math.”
Finally we could give our heads a rest while our hands got busy baking and shaping all the cookies. We used our new list of ingredients and worked as a team to bake a couple hundred cookies. We asked the school director for 30 single dollar bills for change and we were ready to set up our station.
Parents and student came streaming in. The fourth grade girls learnt how to take the money, calculate the change, give the right amount of cookies and hot chocolate; Customer satisfaction was important, as they worked as a team to serve each customer with a smile and make sure they got what they asked for. It was a magnificent time to watch them glow being passionate independent entrepreneurs running their first small business that they worked so hard on!
The next day, the girls were given the opportunity to bargain and sell their left over ingredients to their teacher. They had to look up the original price, estimate how much was used and adjust the amount accordingly if they wanted her to buy it at their discounted price. They learnt that some goods lose value just because they are opened even if not much is used. This interactive class gave them their last opportunity to maximize profits. After counting up their money, they had enough to give the principals back their $79 loan, reimburse the director his $30 of single dollar bills and another $50 for profit.
Unanimously, the girls decided they wanted to go online to Amazon and calculate exactly how many toys they could buy for Jewish Caring Network’s Chanukah Toy Drive. They realized they could either choose a fewer number of big toys or more little toys. Back to their math books they went with addition and decimals until they were happy with their choices and as a class, ordered them on the smartboard. When they arrived, the class took them to the school secretary who sent them with a Cheder family to the Jewish Caring Network where they were warmly received by Stacey Goldenberg, Director of Operations. This long enriching process was an incredible journey filled with of growth, learning, and teamwork and caring for others! Their light from this project now shines and brightens up many other children’s Chanukah for the Baltimore community as a whole.
