Acorn Shop

I just wanted to share some impressions from the acorn shop today, which was part of our school's Mayfest. Personally, I liked it a lot. It was only my 2nd time doing this for the school. There were some complaints that items were over-priced. I don't necessarily share that opinion. Before I took on the shop a lot of items were purchased lil' trinkets made in China. I wanted the acorn shop to be in the spirit of the handmade pledge & Waldorf education. I made a lot of the items myself, and also purchased quite a few items at etsy. The "only" items falling short of that pledge were the lil' organza bags holding little felted treasures, the tiny brooms, and the star-shaped glass jewels.

To set up I used one of the lil' cottage-style playhouses on the playground. Inside the lil' house - you can see a teensy bit when you look closely through the window - was the chicken-coop.

Each acorn the children go a-shopping with is 25 cents. A knitted mother hen was priced at $2.50. Seashells & origami cranes on the other end were priced at 25 cents. I don't think that's too much. What do you think? It's funny, because some of my students were helping with knitting squares to make the hens. The question came up as to how much they should cost. We estimated the materials to be $1 per hen. The yarn was high-quality cotton yarn, or variegated hand-dyed wool & then they were stuffed with wool roving. It took one student about 1-1/2 hours to knit a square. I asked that student what he thought a fair amount of money was for an hourly wage. He said $7. I didn't get into a discussion about the amount, but we thus arrived at a "fair price" of $11.50 per hen. It seems to me that $2.50 (or 10 acorns) wasn't overpriced. It's unfortunate that we live in a culture of bargains & discounts. What really is the value of... let's say a pair of socks?! Anyhoo. Off my soap-box now.

So, the shop sold hens and chicks in the chicken-coop, needle-felted birds & owls, miniature fairy wands, mushroom hair-bands, sparkly candles, wooly butterflies, teensy origami flower clips, needle-felted fairy shoes, tiny brooms, needle-felted bunnies with carrots & ladybugs & mice in organza baggies, fair-trade llama finger-puppets, crochet pansies & flowers, ladybug beads, gemstone heart beads, fish puppets, heart ornaments & birdies sewn from felt, acorn bookmarks, tooth-fairy pillows with a cute lil' tooth-fairy verse, green star glass jewels, bulbs to plants, plant pots painted & planted by 1st grade, origami cranes by 5th grade, postcards with student art, seashells, colored pencils & crayons.

Here are some more pictures...

~ Sign by Rachel at tilesmile ~

2 acorns (50 cents)
~ The little birdies & owls by HuesOfNature. Quite a few treasures actually came from that sweet etsy shop! ~

3 acorns (75 cents)

4 acorns (or $1)

For the next acorn shop I will need to figure out how things can be priced less and/or what treasures can be handmade that would simply be smaller. Any suggestions?

I'm off to packing for the 3-day Pentathlon trip while Noah & Nate are partying at a friend's house who is celebrating his 8th birthday. He is from India, so they made him a card that says Happy Birthday in Sanskrit.

जन्मदिनस्य हार्दिकशुभेच्छाः

I hope this really says Happy Birthday. Yikes. You just never know on the internet, eh?! Hopefully we got the letters right when copying them. I'm afraid a slight mistake will make it mean something toe-tally different. :-)