Don't let the post title scare you. I will not be giving financial advice. "Economy Hour" is an event that occurs three times a year at the boys' school. If you're lucky enough, (or unlucky in my opinion) you'll can participate in both fourth and fifth grades. That is unless you get Mrs. R. for fourth grade. She is "old school" and thinks the whole things is unnecessary to learning at that age. My oldest had her and although he was crying when he heard the news, because of no "Economy Hour", she whispered: "you'll be so happy by the end of the year". She was right. Sorry. Major tangent.
Economy Hour is a little trading store of sorts. Each student is to make an item(s) to sell to his or her classmates at the store. Throughout the quarter they earn "economy bucks" by doing jobs in the classroom, displaying good behavior, etc. At the end of each quarter the "store" opens and they spend half of the time selling and the other half buying goods. The creativity and hard work is quite impressive. (I think once a year would suffice but no one asked me.) Nonetheless it's always a dilemma when the time rolls around to apply for the "business license." Shortly after the last store in March, Ian had already decided that he was going to make fuzzy flip flops and have Mimi help him since she would be visiting in May. Yay! No last minute trips to the store or my repeated mantra of "we will not be working on these the night before". Right.
The day before Mimi left, Ian came home and announced that Economy Hour was in two weeks! Yikes! Fortunately Mimi is a "can-do, problem solving" kind of grandma who kicked into high gear upon hearing the news. Before we knew it, the three of us were heading down the hill to the Dollar Store for flip flops and Jo-Ann's for "fun fur". Bless her heart. Mimi stayed up well past midnight knitting the fun fur (which is a total pain) pattern for Ian's ten pairs of flip flops. She finished up the next day and showed Ian how to sew the fur onto the straps and he was on his way to cashing in the big bucks.
Wait. There was one small problem. What about the boys? UGH! After I rolled my eyes, Ian quickly left the room and consulted Dad who then consulted "Google." Thank God for "Google." Ten minutes later my child was going door-to-door in search of dryer lint. Apparently the combination of the lint, in a cardboard eggshell carton, covered with melted paraffin is an excellent fire starter. Who knew? Problem solved. Wrong.
Ian walked in the following day and informed me that he couldn't do the fire starters because they were.........flammable. You've got to be kidding me??? Isn't everything flammable when it gets near a FLAME??? Gotta love public school. Safety over imagination and creativity. Always. I had to draw the line. Or at least Trey had to. He played phone tag with the principal for a couple days and they never connected. Ian decided to take matters into his own hands. (I love that about this kid!) While I was racking my brain for a new idea, he came home and told me "we can do fire starters now". I assumed that the two men had spoken and worked it all out. I said as much and Ian said "No, I saw him today and asked him myself and he said it was OK." Me: "You did? Did you tell your teacher?" Ian: "She was standing right there." You know what I'm thinking so I'm not even going to say it. Smile.
The proud proprietor of "Fuzzy Flips and Pyro Paks"
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One Response to “Economy Hour”
Well, Dana... I wish I didn't have to shed the light of truth on this, but sadly, I am NOT an early riser. (guilt) If anything I'm a lazy, slovenly woman who would rather sleep until ten. (which of course, I never do, because my children like to get up at the butt-crack of dawn) WHY? OH WHY?
I suppose that I have misled the masses- this was reflecting my day yesterday, and I scheduled it to publish early today. I usually do that because it works so well. (and it's only a day behind) So anytime it publishes at 4:00am... that's "old news"...
I wish that's when I got up, spent a couple of hours in prayer, cleaned my house, etc...
It's my husband who sets his alarm for 5:30. He's got a lot of country boy/farm guy in him, and doesn't like to burn daylight. It's sick and wrong.
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