CLEARWATER, Fla. — Chickens are teaching third graders at St. Paul’s - Clearwater’s Independent School about finance.
- Teachers helped students formulate business plan for chicken business
- Goal is to make money "real" for students
- Students will continue to work with chickens into 4th grade
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"It was like a little seed that was planted: how to make money real to 8 and 9-year-old kids?" said third grade teacher Danielle Felten. "Money is going to become real through chickens, we're gonna get chickens."
With 12 chickens, that’s a lot of responsibility. It started with developing a chicken business plan.
Then students were organized into different departments, starting with research and eventually actually building the business.
"The coop, it was 27 pages to build this whole thing," said 3rd grader Stella Chapman.
The students even named all the chickens.
"Her name is Felicia and she's the head chicken," said Stella. "There's like June, Amelia Egghart, Marvel Eggstein, Miss Becky."
A variety of tasks keep the business going.
"There's feeding, and then there's collecting the eggs job, and there's sometimes, there's hosting, where they host class and they take pictures with the classes, and we have to clean out the coop sometimes," said Stella.
Felten says the key to success is empowering students.
"They knew they wanted to create a sustainable business," she explained. "They wanted to be able to sell eggs and make enough money to like buy the chicken food, to keep the business going, but we needed to start somewhere."
"You have to have fundraisers to get the money and you have to work hard to get it," said 9-year-old William Andrews.
The kids will continue working with the chickens in fourth grade. There, the business plan will expand to include selling the eggs.
Students already have a strategy.
"Probably advertising around the school and have like posters everywhere," said William.
The chickens, meanwhile, are leaving a lasting impression.
"To see 8 and 9-year olds really work together, like, for one purpose, one mission was like the most rewarding thing as a teacher," said Felten.
"It's been really cool," Stella told us. "I never would've thought that we would be doing that."
School staff and families will care for the chickens over the summer break.