Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Lesson 1, Part 5: Assessment

Read each sentence and circle either true or false.

1. If you study economics, you will learn things that you can use someday in your job.
True
False

2. Economics has nothing to do with making choices.
True
False

3. You cannot have everything you want.
True
False

4. Goods are things that you can touch and that meet your economic wants.
True
False

5. Shoes are an example of a service.
True
False

Read each sentence and circle the letter that is the right answer.

6. Which one of these things will you learn about when you study economics?
a. how plants grow
b. the correct spelling of words
c. why people make trades using things like markets, prices, and money
d. multiplication

7. One of the things that economics studies is
a. how you and other people make choices.
b. how you can have everything you want.
c. the four food groups.
d. how to play soccer.

8. In economics, things that you wish for are called
a. presents.
b. economic wants.
c. fairy tales.
d. happy endings.

9. Goods are
a. things you do when your teacher asks you to.
b. actions that meet your economic wants, like TV shows.
c. things that nobody wants.
d. things that you can touch and that meet your economic wants, like computers.

10. Services are
a. things that you can touch and that meet your economic wants, like cars.
b. long meetings.
c. actions that meet your economic wants, like car washes.
d. shortcuts to use in math.
____________________________________

Assessment Key

1. True
2. False
3. True
4. True
5. False
6. c
7. a
8. b
9. d
10. c
____________________________________

Be the first to comment on this blog. Just below the post there is a small link that says "0 comments." Click it to send me a comment. I would love to hear from elementary school teachers.
____________________________________

COPYRIGHT © 2007 by Robert D. Sandman
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Teachers and their students may use this content as follows: Robert D. Sandman hereby grants you a nontransferable license to use the content in connection with your classes. The content is for your personal, noncommercial use only and may not be reproduced, or distributed, except that portions of the content may be provided to your students in connection with your instruction. You must include this notice on all copies that you provide to students. You may not sell, license, auction, or otherwise redistribute the content in any form. Your use of the content indicates your acceptance of these conditions. Thank you.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Lesson 1 Part 4

Reteach

Your teacher will ask some of the students to be storekeepers and some of the students to be buyers. The storekeepers will have pictures or empty boxes of goods and pictures of services. The teacher will line the buyers up to visit the shopkeepers. Each buyer will have one ticket. If a ticket has the words One good, the buyer must pick out a box or picture of a good. If a ticket has the words One service, the buyer must pick out a picture of a service. The storekeepers will make sure that the buyers pick only one product and pick from the correct type. Storekeepers should be ready to answer questions about why you thought that products were goods or services. Buyers should be ready to answer questions about how you chose your products.

Enrichment

Economists (i-kon' e-mists) are people whose job it is to study economics. Economists assume two things about economic behavior. One thing is that a person's economic wants are insatiable (in-sa' she-bel). Insatiability (in-sa' she-bil-i-te) means that economic wants are impossible to satisfy. People who are somehow able to buy everything they want will just want even more things. People can never have enough goods and services.

But remember that people have to trade something to get goods and services. We will discuss trading later in this book. For now, let us say that resources (re' sors' es) are what people trade to get goods and services. The other thing that economists assume is that resources are scarce (skars). Scarcity (skar' si-te) means that there is a limit to how many resources are available to trade for meeting economic wants. As a matter of fact, there are not enough resources to trade for meeting all the insatiable economic wants. Therefore, people can have some of their wants and cannot have others of their wants. That means that people must make choices about which wants to have and which wants to give up. How people make these choices is what economists study.
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Teacher's Notes

Reteach

If student performance on Independent Practice is unsatisfactory, use the Reteach activity. In addition, you may choose to use Reteach if your students best learn kinesthetically. Choose about 20 goods and 20 services to offer in your store. For the goods, bring in pictures or empty boxes. For the services, bring in pictures. Make 20 tickets that read, "One good" and 20 tickets that read, "One service." Choose one half of your students to be storekeepers. The other half will be buyers. Give one ticket to each buyer. Follow the instructions described in the text. From time to time, stop the activity and ask storekeeper volunteers how they distinguished between goods and services. Ask buyer volunteers how they chose products, especially given that they can choose only one product. The key lessons are that buyers must make choices and that there is a difference between goods and services.

Enrichment

Use Enrichment for more advanced students. Students will learn vocabulary terms associated with National Voluntary Standards for older grades. This lesson introduces the terms economists, insatiability, resources, and scarcity. Explain to students that the latter three concepts interact to force people to make choices. People in general have insatiable, unlimited, infinite economic wants. People must trade resources such as money, labor, or time to obtrain economic wants. Resources, however, are scarce, limited, finite. Therefore, people can satisfy only limited sets of their infinite economic wants. This limitation forces people to choose which economics wants are most important to obtain and how to expend their resources. This process of choosing is what economists study.
____________________________________
Be the first to comment on this blog. Just below the post there is a small link that says "0 comments." Click it to send me a comment. I would love to hear from elementary school teachers.
____________________________________

COPYRIGHT © 2007 by Robert D. Sandman
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Teachers and their students may use this content as follows: Robert D. Sandman hereby grants you a nontransferable license to use the content in connection with your classes. The content is for your personal, noncommercial use only and may not be reproduced, or distributed, except that portions of the content may be provided to your students in connection with your instruction. You must include this notice on all copies that you provide to students. You may not sell, license, auction, or otherwise redistribute the content in any form. Your use of the content indicates your acceptance of these conditions. Thank you.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Lesson 1, Part 3: Practice

Guided Practice

1. Your teacher will tell you about a choice that had to be made between two goods and why your teacher could not just have both things. You should think about a choice that you had to make today between two goods. Why could you not just have both things? Be ready to share your choice with the class.

2. Make a copy of the lists below on a piece of paper. Work with your teacher to match the list of economic wants on the left with a good or service listed on the right. When you are done matching, look at the list on the right and circle the goods.

Something You Want.................................Good or Service

Something fun to do after school......................baby sitter
Something to protect your feet from being cut.........car
Something to check your email.........................computer
Someone to take away your garbage.....................shoes
Something to drive in when you go to the store........trash pick-up
Someone to take care of you when your family is away..TV show


Independent Practice

1. Think about a choice that you had to make today between two services. Working on your own, write a paragraph with at least four sentences about your choice. Why could you not just have both things? Be sure that your paragraph has a topic sentence and a closing sentence. Put your name on your paper and turn it into your teacher.

2. Make a copy of the lists below on a piece of paper. Working on your own, match the list of economic wants on the left with a good or service listed on the right. When you are done matching, look at the list on the right and circle the services. Put your name on your lists and turn them into your teacher.

Something You Want..............................Good or Service

Something you want when you are hungry...................bus
Something you use to listen to music.....................kennel
Someone to help you learn about economics................movie
Someone to take care of your pet when you go on a trip...radio
Something to ride in to get to school....................sandwich
Something to see with friends at a theater...............teacher
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Teacher's Materials

Guided Practice

1. Think of an example when you had to choose between two goods. Emphasize why the items in your example are goods and not services. Students will be interested to learn that their teacher is also a consumer. Describe your decision process to the students, paying particular attention to the fact that you could not choose both goods. The important lesson is the necessity of making choices. Ask student volunteers to share about choices they had to make today or recently. Be sure that the examples are choices between goods and not services.

2. Guide the students through completing the matching exercise. Explain as necessary why some items in the right column are goods and some are services. Note that the examples in the right column are listed in the definitions of goods and services in Part 2 of the lesson. The answers are as follows. The items in italics are the goods. Guide students through circling the goods.

Something You Want............................Good or Service

Something fun to do after school.......................TV show
Something to protect your feet from being cut..........
shoes
Something to check your email..........................computer
Someone to take away your garbage......................trash pick-up
Something to drive in when you go to the store.........car
Someone to take care of you when your family is away...baby sitter



Independent Practice

1. Students should work independently to write paragraphs describing recent choices between two services. It is important that the students focus on services, not goods. The paragraphs should have at least four sentences, including topic and closing sentences. The paragraphs should also explain why students could not choose both services. In this way, students can demonstrate an understanding of being forced to make a choice. This is an interdisciplinary exercise that requires students to use composition and grammar skills. Collect the paragraphs and read them to gauge student understanding.

2. Students should work independently to complete the matching exercise. Students will need to distinguish between goods and services. The answers are as follows. The items in italics are the services. Students should circle the services. Collect the results and determine student understanding of the concepts.

Something You Want...............................Good or Service

Something you want when you are hungry...................sandwich
Something you use to listen to music.....................radio
Someone to help you learn about economics................
teacher
Someone to take care of your pet when you go on a trip...kennel
Something to ride in to get to school....................bus

Something to see with friends at a theater...............movie
____________________________________
Be the first to comment on this blog. Just below the post there is a small link that says "0 comments." Click it to send me a comment. I would love to hear from elementary school teachers.
____________________________________

COPYRIGHT © 2007 by Robert D. Sandman
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Teachers and their students may use this content as follows: Robert D. Sandman hereby grants you a nontransferable license to use the content in connection with your classes. The content is for your personal, noncommercial use only and may not be reproduced, or distributed, except that portions of the content may be provided to your students in connection with your instruction. You must include this notice on all copies that you provide to students. You may not sell, license, auction, or otherwise redistribute the content in any form. Your use of the content indicates your acceptance of these conditions. Thank you.
 
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