There were a few special sellers at the Niles Bensidoun French Market Thursday.
Students in Cheryl Schaller’s sixth grade class set up shop as part of Oak Manor’s annual Market Day event.
“It’s been great, the kids are so excited,” Schaller said as students interacted with busy shoppers.
Market Day is a six-week consummation of skills and lessons geared toward entrepreneurship.
During that time, students develop a concept for a variety of products. First, they develop a business based around the product, which they determine as marketable to the consumers in the community.
Schaller said both economic and business concepts as well as math, language arts and social studies concepts are taught throughout the course.
It provides a means to teach the students how to think more entrepreneurially, Schaller said.
Students also take on real-world business roles, including CEO, personnel manager, production manager, marketing manager and finance manager.
Through an Innovation Grant by the Niles Education Foundation, Schaller set up a loan office, making it possible for students to take out loans for their products. Some students also worked through fundraising or donations. Those loans are paid back by profits gained, making the grant sustainable year after year.
By early morning, Schaller said one group of students had already sold out of their products and hopped a bus back to school.
Tables were filled with colorful and creative ideas including flip-flop sandals decorated with tied balloons, pens baked with a polymer clay cover, bookmarks, bird feeders and hair accessories.
“I had help,” said Anastasia Minott, who fashioned her own hair accessories with synthetic flowers and head bands.
Minott called out to shoppers and said even though they’d hit a slow spot in shopper traffic, overall “it’s been really good,” she said.
Madeline Stanton, Tucker Walker and Hannah McKenzie were pushing their flip-flop sandals and said their products were made possible by a loan through he class’ loan office. It was paid back from profits made during the school’s own Market Day at Oak Manor on Wednesday.
Mary Alizefortier stood by her ink pens made with the help of teacher Thomas Hurst. The ink cartridges were removed from each pen prior to baking them in colorful patterns of polymer clay.
“They sell pretty good,” she said.
Being at the Niles Bensidoun French Market is something Schaller said actually gives students the experience of what being an entrepreneur is all about.