Skip Navigation

FACS: Puppet Factory (Mktg)

Main Core Tie

FCS 6th Grade
Strand 5

Time Frame

8 class periods of 45 minutes each

Group Size

Individual

Life Skills

  • Thinking & Reasoning
  • Employability

Authors

Utah LessonPlans

Summary

This marketing unit also teaches hand-sewing skills and cooperation


Materials

Crayons, colored pencils, Four Ps posters,felt squares, assorted buttons, hooks and loops, needles, markers, scissors, calculators, felt scraps, snaps, assorted colored thread, pins,and supplemental videos (optional).


Background for Teachers

Attachments

Read the entire packet and prepare accordingly.


Student Prior Knowledge

Overview of sewing techniques.


Intended Learning Outcomes

Students will learn marketing strategies while producing a hand-sewn puppet.


Instructional Procedures

OBJECTIVE: The culmination activity for this unit is a simulation of a sewing factory. The goal for this activity is for the students to have an opportunity to learn about marketing, child care and safety, and to learn the basic hand-sewing stitches and techniques while making hand puppets.

A week before you are to beginning the puppet factory:

  1. Students need to take part in a market research survey. This can be done written or verbally. Questions need to be asked of the target population -- those providing child care or parents of small children. Questions need to be asked about the product and its marketability to this population. See sample Research Survey.
  2. Students can tally their results on a worksheet (See the Product Worksheet) or summarize the answers from the face-to-face survey.
  3. Using the results of the survey can help determine the construction of the product (to the extent you can), the price to charge, and the promotional ideas for the product later on.
DAY 1
PRODUCT
  1. Discuss/review with students what marketing is and the four Ps. Use the overhead presentation, What is Marketing? An Overhead Presentation.
  2. Present to the students that the class will be opening a business making hand puppets. Each student will be involved in opening his/her own business. This can be done individually, as partners, or as small groups. A business provides consumers or customers with goods, services, or information. Your business will provide a product (puppets) to its customers.
  3. Using the four Ps of marketing will insure that your puppet business is a success. Identify the four Ps using the posters.
    • Product--hand puppet
    • Place--where to best distribute the puppets
    • Price--cost to produce the puppet
    • Promotion--methods used to let the consumers know about our product
  4. Refer to the Research Survey that will help you decide what your product should look like -- color, animal chosen, etc. Use the results of the survey as much as possible to vary your production of the puppet.
DAY 2
PRICE
  1. Display the cost of the supplies/materials for the puppet factory. Discuss the other expenses in running a business (cost of labor, building costs, advertising, etc.). Discuss the need for profit. Most businesses figure the sales price is double the cost to produce or buy an item.
  2. Have students determine the cost to produce the puppets using the attached worksheet -- Puppet Factory Cost worksheet.
DAY 3 & 4
PROMOTION
  1. Promotion means ways of letting people know how great your product is. How will you introduce your puppets to the people that will buy them? Use the results of the Research Survey"/"Product Worksheet to guide your decisions.
  2. Have students choose a name for their puppet factory
  3. Advertisement is one form of promotion. Have students create a logo and/or slogan to represent their puppet factory.
  4. Have students design a flyer which can be distributed to their target market, advertising their puppet factory. Identify the target market, the people most likely to purchase their puppets. The flyer should include
    • The name of the factory
    • Price of the puppet
    • Items(s) to be sold
    • Logo or slogan
DAY 5
  1. Discuss with the students how they should market themselves by asking them the following questions:
    • What qualities do employers look for?
    • What can teenagers do to help them be successful in their jobs?
    • What are some work skills that are important for employees to have that the employers look for?
    • What are some personal traits that are important for employees to have?
    • Why is it important to be a good employee?
    • What would you expect of an employee if you were the boss?
    • Do you think employers expect different qualities in teenagers than in adults? Why?
    • What are some reasons that people lose their jobs?
    • What are some reasons that teenagers might lose their jobs?
    • If you were an employer, would you hire YOU? Why?
  2. Have students complete the worksheets, Marketing: Applications and Interviews and Job Application Corporation.
  3. Supplemental videos Part-time Jobs for Teens' Careers: Preparing for your future Interviewing: No Brainers (see attached sheet for ordering information)
DAY 6
PLACE
  1. Students should realize that the classroom is not a convenient place for customers to purchase their product; therefore, distribution (getting the right product to the right place at the right time) is key to their success. Have them brainstorm where a good place might be to market the puppets.
  2. Refer to Marketing Definitions (teacher background) for 7 Sales Step Process to expand the concept of place and incorporate role play.
DAY 7
PRODUCTION
  1. Puppet production begins! Class size and skill level will determine how any days it will take to teach the sewing techniques.
  2. While the students are sewing you can integrate child care and child safety issues into a class discussion. They enjoy sharing their baby-sitting experiences and ideas with the class. You may also show one of the following videos while the students are sewing: --Child Safety --Safe Kids (ordering information attached)
  3. Pass out the grading sheet and instruction packet and review it with your students. The teacher should supply the felt, snaps, hooks and loops, and thread. I have the students supply their own buttons for the face
  4. Have students select their two large felt squares and felt for the pocket.
  5. Cut out a paper pattern and then cut out the felt puppet.
DAY 8 Using the instruction packet, teach the students the following sewing skills: how to tie a knot at the beginning and end and hem the pocket (1" turndown) using a hem stitch DAY 9 Apply the pocket to one layer of the puppet using the backstitch. DAY 10 Sew on the shank and sew through buttons to create a face. DAY 11 Sew on the snaps and the hooks and loops to the paws. DAY 11
  1. Join the puppet front to back using the overcast stitch.
  2. Grade the puppets (using the grading sheet) as the students finish them. You could put a small piece of candy in the puppet pocket as you grade them individually with each student.
FYI Several students made puppet families, primary and secondary felt color squares, or different shapes to put in their puppet pockets to use as a baby-sitting tool.


Created: 05/25/2005
Updated: 02/05/2018
12335
/>