Starting A Small Business Project

This project is designed for 7th-8th graders who have learned how to find unit rate, percents, proportions, and solve/write equations.

I used this activity in a 7th grade honors math class at the end of the year. The students loved this activity! Students felt so proud when making their items and designing their business. When each student brought in their items to sell, it was very neat to see a different side of each student.

Students can be creative as to what they want to sell. Just to give you an idea, some of my students made paper air planes, bracelets, hacky sacks, cookies, cupcakes, drawings and boomerangs.

I always try to create practical projects and activities for my class. During this activity, students are doing research, learning business techniques, interacting with customers, calculating profits/losses/expenses, and so much more!

This project can be completed in class in about 4 days. (1 day for research, 1 day for calculations, 1 day for the market, and 1 day for after market questions) The day before starting the project, have students think about what they are good at creating or reselling for homework.

With access to the internet, students researched the cost of supplies to make their items to sell online. Then, students set a price to sell their products at. Students then will see if it is possible to save money to make their products by shopping around, finding promotional strategies to attract buyers, and gather feedback from potential customers.

Students will write equations to find the cost per item, total sales, and profit using x for how many items they sell.

On the class market day, students bring in their items to sell. Each student has $5.00 of play money that they must spend.

After the market, students will calculate what percent of their products sold, what was the rate of products sold: number of potential customers, and make predictions using proportions. Students will calculate if they were profitable today and if they will be profitable at another market.

This activity takes the common lemonade stand to the next level in preparing our students to be future entrepreneurs and business leaders.

Good luck and enjoy the project!!