A lesson in good taste

Bake sale at Weston School teaches more than cooking skills.

By: Mary Ellen Zangara
   Last week’s bake sale by Weston School’s third-graders may have been the best-tasting math lesson they ever had.
   The student ran their own businesses for a few hours Nov. 18 in their classrooms as part of a lesson involving money and math skills. The project also helped raise an estimated $400 for charity, according to teachers.
   "It’s a good way for them to apply their skills to finding change," teacher Jen Griffiths said. The bake sale’s proceeds will be used to buy supermarket gift cards that will be donated to the food bank.
   "The food bank is running low and we will give them gift cards to the local food stores so they go and purchase what they need, and they can give the dinners to the people in our community," Ms. Griffiths said.
   All the classes brought in baked or store-bought items to sell at their desks. The offerings included brownies, cookies, muffins, and even cupcakes decorated as turkeys. Teachers set the prices at what they thought was fair — 10 cents for a cookie, 50 cents for a cupcake, Ms. Griffiths said.
   Students from the entire school then visited one of the four third-grade classrooms to buy the goodies.
   Ms. Griffiths said the successful sale was timed to coincide with the students’ studies on how to make change. Each student brought in $3 in change from home to use as their business’s opening balance.
   "They got that back, and that’s what they used to buy from each other," she said.
   Third-grader Nicole Bonifaz in Lisa Boss’ class decide to forgo the traditional sweets and brought in potato chips to sell instead.
   "My mother wanted to bake brownies, but I wanted to bring in chips," Nicole said. "We were raising money for charity and we raised a lot of money," she said, noting her chips were a sellout.
   Nicole’s classmate, Brianna Roche, sold peanut butter and sugar cookies. In Ms. Griffiths’ class, Brittany Hoodja made and sold "turkey" cupcakes and they were so popular that she sold out.
   "I learned that it was hard because when you have a couple of kids like kindergartners and they are impatient — it was really hard to make the change with the amount of change," Brittany said.
   "This sale is done every year in November and in chapter one they do a lot of work with money and the students see the practical use of the things they learn in class," Ms. Griffiths said.
   All those dimes and quarters were still be counted, but Ms. Griffths said her class alone raised more than $110 and she thinks the entire third grade raised about $400 in all.