Candy + Helping Animals = Fun Economics Lesson

Shawnee Early Childhood School second-graders helped spread kindness and smiles throughout their school on the days leading up to Valentine’s Day with a special candy gram sale.

The second-grade teaching team (Mrs. Goetz, Mrs. Wagner, Miss Evans and Mrs. Bumiller) wanted to wrap up their economics unit with a real-life experience that also incorporated community service. “We landed on selling candy grams because it was right around Valentine’s Day – and everyone loves candy!” said teacher Effie Goetz.

Typically for this unit, the teachers create a marketplace where students produce and sell items to each other. The candy gram project brought a new twist to the concept: students were responsible for different “production” jobs. They had to collect, sort and create the candy grams. They were also responsible for counting and keeping track of the profit made each day. Finally, students delivered the candy grams at the end of each school day.

The students wanted to donate the money raised to a local charity, and all four classes decided to help HART (Homeless Animal Rescue Team).

Students created posters, flyers and a commercial to spread the word about the candy gram sale and about HART animal rescue.

“Seeing how excited not only our own students were to buy and sell candy grams, but also show so much excitement to donate the money was really fulfilling,” said teacher Taylor Evans. “That’s all they could talk about -- how happy they were to be able to provide new things for all of the animals at HART. It was also exciting to see how much fun the rest of the building was having participating in sending candy grams to students, staff and even themselves!”

The sale lasted for 5 days. At the end of the project, students calculated how much money that would be donated to HART – the total was a whopping $985.01!

“I can’t wait to give this money to help all the puppies and kitties that need food and milk,” said second-grader Malika J.