Lesson: Kheris’s Fashion Line

Discuss situations that involve shipping costs. Post the following scenario and choose students to make a decision and explain their reasoning.

• You need to order 2 boxes of macaroni to make macaroni salad. Each box costs $4.50. The shipping rate is a flat $3 fee. If your order costs $10 or more, shipping is free. How many boxes of macaroni should you order?

Play the video “Flexin’ in My Complexion.” Then have students read the article individually. Hold an open-ended class discussion about what they just read. Some questions you can ask include:

• How do you feel about Kheris Rogers’s story?

• How did you feel when you read about Kheris’s problem in school?

• Kheris has supportive family members. Who are they, and how do they support Kheris?

• How does Kheris balance her business with her other responsibilities and activities, such as school?

• What was your biggest takeaway from Kheris’s story?

Read through the introduction of the “Calculating Shipping Costs” box on page 15. Then have students look at the product and shipping cost charts above the box. For each of the “Your Turn” questions, use a think-pair-share format. Then discuss the following as a class:

• For question 1: Students can find the total order costs using expedited shipping and standard shipping and then subtract: ($10 x 2) – ($4.90 x 2), or they can find the per-item difference between standard and expedited shipping, and multiply that by the number of items: 2($10 – $4.90). Use this as an opportunity to discuss the distributive property. Then ask: Why do both methods work? How does this show the distributive property?

• For question 2, ask: Is there more than one way to solve for this question? Be sure that students provide both possible combinations—a backpack and 2 kid’s T-shirts or 5 kid’s T-shirts—and answer the question for both possible combinations.

Two of the questions in this article ask about combinations of products. Teach students some basics of combinatorics using any of the following ideas:

• Show students how to make tables or tree diagrams for making combinations. For example, you might use a shirt/pants or food/beverage combination.

• Teach students about the difference between combinations and permutations. In combinations, order doesn’t matter. In permutations, order does matter. For example, a Trump/Pence ticket or a Pence/Trump ticket is one combination of candidates. A Biden/Harris ticket and a Harris/Biden ticket would be two different permutations of candidates.

Flexin’ in My Complexion has a collaboration with the children’s book Sulwe by Lupita Nyong’o. Do an interactive read-aloud of Sulwe, which explores colorism. You might use a website such as adl.org/media/14005/download to help you with ideas on how to discuss or extend the reading of this book.

Have students visit flexininmycomplexion.com to make a wish list. Ask them to create a list for 2, 3, and 4 items they would want. For each wish list, calculate the standard shipping costs, the expedited shipping costs, and the total cost for both types of shipping.