Canyon View Third Graders Get a Lesson in Business from the Kona Ice Truck

Students cheer and wave as the Kona Ice truck pulls up in the Canyon VIew bus bay.

When a bright and colorful Kona Ice truck pulled into the bus bay at Canyon View Elementary on Thursday morning, it wasn't just there to serve shaved ice. It was there to teach.Third graders at Canyon View are wrapping up an annual food truck project that blends math, research, design, and entrepreneurship into one hands-on learning experience. As part of their research, Kona Ice representative Karrie Reaney spent an hour with students, walking them through what it actually takes to run a food truck business.
Standing inside the truck, Reaney covered everything from health food licensing and food safety training to managing inventory, hiring employees, and keeping trucks clean and well-maintained. She explained how Kona Ice operates as a franchise of about 1,000 trucks nationwide, and how the company got its start when the founder wanted to create a truck that was clean, kid-friendly, and welcoming to families. The students had plenty of questions, and Reaney didn't hold back on the real-world details. She talked about the challenge of estimating how much ice to bring to an event, what happens when a jug of flavoring springs a leak on the drive over, and why employees need to be honest and able to count. She even walked students through allergen information and explained why it matters to know exactly what's in every flavor.
"If your mom came up to me and asked me if lemon lime has red dye, I can look up the ingredients and say no, it doesn't," Reaney told the students, showing them the nutritional and allergen reference guide she keeps on the truck.
The visit was the latest chapter in a food truck project that has become a Canyon View tradition. Now in its fourth year, the project asks students to work in teams to research food trucks, choose a concept, design a logo and menu, and do the math to build a real budget. Students calculate the cost per serving using division, then multiply that by the number of servings to determine how much of each ingredient they'll need. The project culminates in a food truck festival where teams open their trucks and serve "food" made from recycled materials to classmates."The kids are doing a fantastic job working together to create a plan on what it would look like to open their own food truck business," said third grade teacher Mary Clark, who developed the project since year one. "It involved a lot of creative thinking, a lot of problem solving, and, of course, some good math skills."
This is the second year in a row that Kona Ice has visited Canyon View to support the project, and Mrs. Reaney's presentation gave students a chance to see their classroom research reflected in a real business. From supplies and staffing to branding and budgeting, the same concepts the students have been working through in class came to life beside a truck full of shaved ice and 50 flavors of syrup. The students even got to put their creativity to work on the truck itself. The third grade teachers challenged them to come up with new flavor combinations using the syrups from Kona Ice's Flavor Wave, and the third graders delivered: 75 original recipes, each with its own clever name. Among the creations were Rainbow Splash, including Tiger's Blood (a strawberry-based flavor) and Lucky Lime; Zombie Colada, featuring Monster Mango and Island Rush; and Forest Black, a combination of Lime and Blue Raspberry that Mrs. Reaney said is already her employees' favorite (they call it "Cactus Juice"). The recipes were displayed on the Kona Ice truck during Canyon View's spring carnival, so families could try the student-created combinations.