Monday and Tuesday were the big day! Every fifth grader presented their final presentation to the whole school and parents, and the presentations were a BIG hit! 

My Capstone projects was on “How to start a business using trends” and here is my final project…

But before that, I will tell you a little bit more on this whole 6 week Capstone project. As a little recap from my latest six blog posts they all are on a different parts/learning experience on Capstone. My main inquiry and sub-questions were a challenging step but they were the base of my entire project so I made sure mine came out perfect. Interviews and Site visits were important too. They were very reliable sources for gathering helpful information. The site visit was important because you could see visuals of all the information you were working hard to find. So, that, lady’s and gentleman, is a little blog post recap!

But now, let me tell you all about the actual Capstone presentation day and all my little helpful tips! Continue reading Capstone Project #7 Final Projects

If you remember from my previous (Capstone Project #2) post I was discussing creating my own inquiry question. Now with Capstone nearing an end my inquiry question must get answered, and here is the process on how it did…

Inquiry questions are the base of everyone’s’ Capstone project. Everyone creates one and use that as a learning guideline. My inquiry question (after a whole lot of revision!) is “how are trends helpful in starting up a new business and how is keeping up with trends helpful in maintaining a store’s success?” But now since it’s weeks later it’s time to find the answer. The big and final part of this project. Finding it can be hard though. Mine wasn’t easy. All my beginning blog post their main topics played a big part in finding the answer. Notes from articles, an interview and cite visit and questions were big information sources. But being able to find the answer means your articles have to be very narrow. By narrow I mean have the article mainly just about that one question. I, as one example, had to split my question up into two pieces to be able to find the best information possible.

When nearing the end you just put your findings together from all of your questions and there you go, you’ve completed the main part Capstone, your main inquiry question.

Followup to my incredible interview with Eleanor Langston I had my site visit. The behind the scenes of this whole project is amazing! You would never understand all the work the backstage employees have to do, all the people that the customers don’t ever see. Businesses are a blast but a lot of work!    

Paint Box is in Soho, New York and one building is for the store, all the fun an interesting trend product that the customers go to. The second building though is for all the behind the scenes work. Eleanor explained when she took me over that this place is where all the runway shows get planed and paper work gets done. Everyone chimes in with their backstage work to keep the company up and running and publicized.  I meet up with two people who are also a big part of this firm and one was Lindsey Kaszuba. She is the director of business development. She is the behind the scenes “event planner” for Paint Box and also does “contracts, recruiting”. She has a big job that most people won’t even know about! Julie Kandalec is the behind set creative director. She does their “Instagram, plans out schedules for blog post etc.” She does the whole social media concept Eleanor said. Eleanor also explained that looks are also important for a store. Pretty and bold colors may get people feeling excited about what will come next during their turn. Decoration can really set the mood for your store and can change a clients mood most likely for the better as well! There is always way more detail going into a business then you would have expected!

Yesterday I had the most incredible interview with the CEO of Paint Box, Eleanor Langston. She is so inspiring and very informative which was so helpful! She answered all my questions with the most detail I could even ask for. She was the best guideline for this project and I am so grateful! My curiosity for this project was now thrown even further!

Paint Box is in Soho, New York and Eleanor Langston is such an incredible nail salon owner. She is such a generous person. We covered all topics on how to spot the trend all the way to opening this brand new hit store. “All my friends were intrested in nails” but ” I wanted to elevate the nail art experience in my store.” She choose her one trend but made it her own thing. She explained, that she “really wanted to elevate the experience from the moment you walk in the studio, that it doesn’t feel like a typical nail salon.” Location is a big part of business too, explains Eleanor. It is an important choice. Staff to, an important decission and she defenitly choose the right ones. Eleanor wants energetic workers, someone fun to be around, they really improve the customers experience if you have someone with a bubbly personality! Fun is what she wants!

The Capstone Project is a project that the entire Fifth Grade participates in. The way it works is that every kid picks a topic to research, learn about and then present the final project to the entire school. They always comes out incredible and are super inspiring. My topic is “How to start a new business using trends” and these series of blog post  is all the thinking and work that went behind it…

For my Capstone Project I chose the topic of “How to start a new business using trends” and I’m super excited about it! This field of work always got me curious so I narrowed my final list down to “How to start a business using trends.” My other options before were crayons and architecture but how to start a business always caught my eye…

Continue reading Capstone Project #1