Educational Door Busters!

5 classroom activities for Black Friday and Cyber Monday

black friday

Looking for a great deal for your classroom during this short school week? Consider incorporating a Black Friday/Cyber Monday inspired lesson! As the excitement of the holiday season begins to take hold, it can sometimes be challenging for students (and teachers) to maintain their focus. Take advantage of the busiest shopping days of the year; they can serve as a springboard when creating effective, relevant, and engaging learning opportunities!

School Store

Set up a series of stations or “mini malls” containing magazine clippings or pictures showing this season’s most popular toys and gifts throughout the classroom. Instruct students to estimate the price for each item either individually or within groups. Once their predictions and data are gathered, the class can create a series of graphs comparing their estimations to actual prices. For advanced students, extensions can include calculating a variety of percent-off deals! Challenge your students further by assigning students as cashiers or bankers; assess them based on their ability to determine different ways to make change!

Happy girl learning about finance with toy cash register

Budget Bonanza

As an extension to the “School Store” activity, teachers can distribute play money to students and establish allowances for the items they’d like to buy. Students will create a budget to shop for everyone on their list. They will use current circulars to compare prices to determine the best deal! Bring this activity to a higher level by advising students to create a Savings Spreadsheet! Encourage students to collaborate to determine how much money can be saved. Using Google Sheets, students can log how much play money is spent in a school store activity.

Deal or No Deal?

Entering the economics realm of the math world, teachers can carry out this activity to help students recognize trends! To serve as an ongoing project, students will conduct research to determine if product prices will increase or decrease over the course of the holiday season. Helpful apps students can use for reference include “Cyber Monday,” “Coffee Table,” and “Weekly Sales, Deals & Coupons.” To display their findings, students can create a weekly report displaying changes in price patterns.

Teacher And Pupil In School Computer Class Working On Spreadsheets

Black Friday in the Books

Thanksgiving’s not the only notable historic day rapidly approaching; Black Friday has its own story worth exploring with your students! Despite the fact that it is now a term used to describe a day full of fantastic shopping bargains, the phrase “Black Friday” was used long before big screen TV’s came on the scene. History.com provides teachers and students with interesting facts associated with the kickoff of holiday shopping sprees.

Design Your Own Advertisement

Creativity is prominent in this activity as students are instructed to design a fun slogan, song, or magazine-style flyer to encourage others to purchase the gift they’d like most this holiday season. Another option would be to have create a commercial using iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, or another video editing platform. Teachers can create a rubric that accounts for students’ research, understanding of the item’s key features, and overall attention to detail.

Remember, tapping into current events can create a fun learning environment for students of all age groups!