Many skills can be taught through a student store, snack bar, or some kind of a small canteen or shop. Products may be made by the students themselves (such as baked goods being made in a cooking class) or commercially-available products may be sold. Some of the skills that can be taught through this activity include:
- math skills (making change, adding totals)
- money identification
- communication (greeting customers, asking what they would like, vocabulary)
- social skills (interacting with customers and peers, manners)
- motor skills (lifting, grasp and release, bi-manual coordination)
- literacy (reading menu, price list, shopping list, labels; writing signs, describing experience)
- basic cognitive skills (matching, sorting, sequencing)
- orientation & mobility (perceptual-motor & spatial relations of person to person/objects/environs)