social emotional learning

So You Want to Start a Classroom Coffee Cart?

We LOVE our classroom coffee cart. This year, we started doing it on Fridays. As a classroom that follows CCSS and uses an adapted, but still gen-ed, curriculum, doing a coffee cart daily during the school year would have been tricky. We have a lot to cover academically, but we justified using Friday mornings as a great time to generalize social skills. During ESY, we will do our coffee cart daily!
Let’s also keep in mind… my original classroom coffee cart took place in a therapeutic day school servicing only students with identified disabilities. Sadly, they had no inclusion opportunities. Are you considering creating a coffee cart business in a general education school? A caring and thoughtful follower on Facebook pointed me towards a great video from Dr. Paula Kluth on this very topic. She disrupts the standard coffee cart system by sharing that a coffee cart run by children with disabilities in a general education building is NOT inclusion (…because it’s not!), and how to make that experience, if you choose to create it, more inclusive. Check it out here!

How did we get started?

Our classroom coffee cart “business” consists of a Keurig, K-Cups, creamer, sugar packets, Styrofoam cups and a utility cart. These materials are not cheap, and we had to get creative on how we were going to obtain them all. I created a DonorsChoose project  which funded the biggest items on our list. We were able to get sugar packets and stirrers donated from a local coffee shop! Then, our mission was ready to go!
My students created fliers that we emailed around the school letting them know about our venture. Since we got our materials donated, we decided we would offer our coffee for free. We take donations which we will donate to a local charity at the end of ESY.

What do Coffee Cart Fridays Look like?

Every Thursday afternoon, we send out a Google Form to our teachers asking if they would like coffee on Friday morning. They simply add their name and say yes, or no.
On Friday mornings, the magic happens! While my students are in PE class, I set up the Keurig and get out our materials. We store our materials on the top of a bookshelf during the week. When students arrive back to the classroom, we look at our Google Form data and determine how many cups of coffee we will need to brew.
We then split up our class into 2 groups. Group 1 makes and delivers coffee downstairs, Group 2 makes and delivers coffee upstairs. This allows for less congestion, more hands on experiences, and the ability for more in-the-moment prompting and teaching from me. While one group is working, the other group completes social skills centers with my classroom para.

My students take turns filling the Keurig, adding the K-Cup, getting the Styrofoam cup, and pressing the “brew” button. They then place the full coffee cup on our utility cart.

When our cups are ready to go, we make sure we have a variety of creamers, stirrers, and sugar packets. We push our cart to each office/classroom, knock on the door, and say, “Your coffee is ready!” The teacher/staff can then come in the hallway to customize their coffee with the cream/sugar as needed.

Takeaways from Coffee Cart Fridays


My students have really flourished with this little business/community service venture, but not without bumps. Students were constantly begging for their own coffee, putting their hands in full coffee cups, arguing over assigned duties, sneaking creamer cups in their pockets, etc. etc. etc. The growing pains were REAL. Is it perfect? No. But they really are learning about sacrifice, handling the word “No” (either from myself or from our “customers”!), handling repeating a task over and over, and sharing jobs with each other. I have found this to be such a positive and REAL way to practice needed social and executive functioning skills. Working with scenarios and role plays are meaningful, but teaching social skills in the moment really is the best way for students to understand and generalize the skills.

Are you ready to turn your class into entrepreneurs yet?

4 comments

  1. I love this! How old were your students? Wondering if I could do this with my middleschoolers! !

    1. Hi Elyssa! My students were 3-4 graders, but I am certain this could be successful with middle schoolers. Good luck!

  2. We started a coffee shop this semester. We are open once a week. We offer 5 types of drinks and also use a google doc to collect orders. The students are learning how to read and comprehend forms, improving their phone skills, interacting with their customers and handling money. It’s been really fun to see them take complete ownership of the shop.

    1. Hey Rachel. I love this! So many great skills being used in such a functional way. Thanks for commenting!

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