Monthly Archives: January 2012

Survey says–we’re running our own businesses!

And we need your help! Please don’t leave without filling out our surveys at the bottom of this post.

(This guest post was written by 3 graduated Huzzahnians: Greyson, Meghan, and Andrew)

For the past month our class has been learning something very special: how to start and run our own businesses. Grade 6 classes from our school (and our grade 7s) are being sponsored the Coastal Community Credit Union to take part in  The Young Entrepreneur Program.

We have been learning all about the different types of businesses. There are retail, manufacturing, and service businesses.

When you own a retail business you sell products that are designed and produced by other businesses. For example WalMart is a retail business. Owning a services business means  you do things for people. For example, when you go to the dentist, they are supplying a service to you, not selling tooth brushes like a retail business or manufacturing tooth paste like a manufacturing business. But when you own a manufacturing business (like us) you  produce a product and sell it. For example, Duracell produces batteries and sells them to retailer like Canadian Tire. In our case, we are selling our products ourselves!

Another thing we learned about is how to conduct a market research survey. We put our questions into Google Forms and embedded them on our blogs. We hope they will tell us about what our customers want so we can  improve our products. Our fair is on Friday, February 10th in our school gym–less than 2 weeks away.

So, to help us out, please visit our surveys below. Just click on the link to go to the post–it takes less than a minute to answer a survey! (And while you are visiting, why not check out the excellent posts written by these young bloggers?)

**** Neat Feature! When you have finished the survey click on See previous responses. –what a great way to know what others thought.***

Thank you for your feedback!

Image credit: raw coins and leaves #7 by steveleenow

 

 

 

 

 

We’re Having a Baby!

Do we make babies smile--or do they make US smile?

Yes, a baby boy!

And how very fortunate we are. A lovely baby named Elliot is going to visit our class. He’ll teach us a lot about how to care for and about him and the people around us. I bet your curiosity has been piqued. I will leave the details about Elliot and his visits to two of our hardworking Huzzahnian bloggers.

From Sophie:

We recently found out that we are getting a new student! His name is Elliot and he is barely 2 months old! Elliot will be coming into our class every three weeks for a visit with his mom. He is coming in for a special program called Roots of Empathy. It is basically where a baby comes into our class and we learn from him/her by their actions. What is empathy? Empathy is a way of showing compassion by reading other peoples’ body language and acting on it. For example, if you noticed someone was hurt you would show empathy by helping them.

Just from our first visit with Mrs. Kennedy I have already learned lots about babies. One of the things that I was most surprised about was that newborn babies can hear just as well as adults can. When Elliot comes to visit, we will all sing songs because babies enjoy the sound of singing. Did you know that babies like the sound of soft, high voices? That is why we will be singing.

From Mara:

Roots of Empathy is a program that is designed to help stop violence in youth. We are learning about understanding other people’s feelings. We do this program with a baby because babies don’t know how to mask their feelings as apposed to kids where they can look happy but inside feel very sad.

Our baby’s name is Elliot; he is now 2 months old and although we haven’t met him yet we are still having classes to prepare. Today is Monday, our first class and on Thursday Elliot will come to our class to visit us.

What is empathy you ask ? Empathy is the ability to put yourself in some one else’s shoes, to understand some else’s perspective.

(You can read other responses to our first ROE lesson with Mrs. Kennedy on the student blogs.)

So, Huzzahnians, today you met Elliot for the first time. What did you observe about him? What did you notice about your reactions to him? Think about Mrs. Moore’s relationship with Elliot–how is she helping him as he grows?

And guests–we value your thoughts. Do you have a little brother or sister? What can babies and toddlers teach us about how to treat each other?

Image: Look at my chompers! by nick see