ECONOMICS

Kindergarten

 

Overarching Question: How do people get what they want and need?

Essential Questions:                                                                                        

¨       What is the difference between a want and a need?

¨       How do we get what we want or need in our classroom?

¨       Can people have everything they want?

¨       Why do we have money?

¨       Are there things you want or need that do not cost money?

¨       Why do we need to take care of our materials/resources?

 

Enduring Understandings 

 

MA History/ Social  Science curriculum framework Learning Standards:

Assessments

Learning Experiences

Within any community people have various jobs, roles, and responsibilities.

 

People work for a variety of reasons.

 

Goods and services can be bought, sold, shared, traded or donated.

 

People rely on others for goods and services.

 

Goods can be made, reused, or recycled.

 

Money is used to buy things, but it cannot buy everything people want or need.

 

Some people do not have enough money to buy the things they want or need.

 

When we take care of our materials/resources, they last longer.

 

 

 

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Use words relating to work, such as jobs, money, buying, and selling.

 

Give examples of how family members, friends, or acquaintances use money directly or indirectly (e.g., credit card or check) to buy things they want.

 

Give examples of different kinds of jobs that people do, including the work they do at home.

 

Explain why people work (e.g. to earn money in order to buy things they want)

 

Give examples of the things that people buy with the money they earn.

Set up a “town” where children shop, bank, eat, etc and use play money (which they can create) or barter to obtain goods/services.

 

Field Trips – see how people work, provide services, and produce goods ie visit a bank, farm, bakery, post office.

 

Raise money for a trip, charity, etc. keeping track of money.

Collect goods (ie books, coats, food, etc) for those in need.

 

Discuss ways to share classroom resources.

 

Discuss gender stereotypes as they relate to family members’ roles and jobs people have

 

Invite visitors to visit the classroom to talk about their jobs

 

Create an alphabet book, graph, or chart about various kinds of jobs (including jobs done from home).

 

Hold a “Trade Day” when children are invited to trade  books, toys, etc with one another (with parent permission)

 

Count and discuss amounts of lunch and milk money.

 

Make bread or other product on an assembly line.

 

Sell a product or service and donate funds to worthy cause ie.Collect paper scraps and make paper – sell the paper, donate money raised to worthy cause (ie purchase acre of rainforest,)

 

Literature

Girls A to Z Eve Bunting  Roxaboxen Barbara Cooney Something From Nothing Phoebe Gilman  A Chair for My Mother Vera B. Williams

The Money Tree Sarah Stewart    Corduroy Don Freeman   Joseph Had an Overcoat Simms Tabak    The Goat in the Rug Charles Blood

Feast for 10 Cathryn Falwell