Linderman Medieval Market

By Ali Bronsdon/Leader Staff

Brightly jeweled crowns, wooden swords and daggers, dragon hearts and sugary sweets — the Linderman Medieval Market set apart the fourth grade's final Market Day from all the rest.

What began with a business proposal and an application signed by their parents in the beginning of the school year, Market Day vendors have endured almost nine months of mercantile highs and lows. Twice a month, they go to market to either sell or buy goods, depending on which class they are in.

"It was an opportunity for the parents to become involved in what's happening with the school," said fourth grade teacher Caroline Hall. "The goal is that it would be family time in creating what is for sale."

Students can have business partners, which allows them to split the work, but also the profit.

"After they've had market, they go back to their rooms and they pay taxes on what they've earned and they pay rent for their table spaces," Hall said. "All banking and accounting is done on Quicken software. They have deposit slips, a pay check and everything else. A lot of them go home and teach the program to their parents because they really do know it."

According to Hall, the Medieval Market is the culminating market of the year. Every student can have a business.

The six to nine week long Medieval unit began with the study of simple machines in science and then moved on to the social sciences of culture and literature, etc. Students built elaborate castles out of diverse materials from cardboard to Legos, sugar cubes and even doughnuts. Many had trees and flowers. Some depicted scenes with knights and dragons battling in the courtyard. Almost all were complete with a drawbridge and moat — even a catapult was a common addition to the decor.

"It's putting real life meaning to those simple machines in their basic form," Hall said. "A good example of that is the castles. You see all the simple machines in use in that day in time."

To earn money to spend at market, students apply for jobs in their "ville" and can earn up to $4.50 "Linderman bucks" a week for their job and $7.50 a week for their work as a student, Hall said. The Linderman Village was designed by two since retired teachers Caroline Heinz and Liz Gessler whose goal was to provide real-world math and occupational learning in the classroom. They set up a micro-community where every classroom has a mayor and an assistant mayor that are elected by the class.

Hall said that $12 can go a long way at market, which takes place twice a month. On the alternate Fridays, the classrooms become entertainment choices with arts and crafts, games, movies, theatre, and more. Students can pay $2 for the entertainment of their choice.

Tuesday and Wednesday, the "Big Auction" took place where students had one final opportunity to spend their hard earned Linderman bucks.

"We had some entrepreneurs that had over $1,000 saved up this year," said Hall. "We gear it toward outside, healthy activities for the children. We had donations from all over the nation, but mainly our community."

Sutton Kanta created a personalized shield-painting table where students could pay to decorate a large foam-board shield.

"It's so popular that I already sold out," he said.

"It was just amazing what they come up with," said Hall. "They never cease to amaze us."