Students differentiate between goods and services. 

Students pose relevant questions about individual choice and free-market. By using examples of stories about workers and budgets, products and services that impact and benefit the community through informational texts and interviews.  

Students gather information from print and digital sources to form an evidence-based opinion about exchange and the role of money in daily life and purchases.

Students partake in a classroom economy to practice skills of cost-benefit ratio, individual choice and budgets. 

What are goods and services?

What does it mean to budget money? 

Students differentiate between goods and services. 

Students pose relevant questions about individual choice and free-market. By using examples of stories about workers and budgets, products and services that impact and benefit the community through informational texts and interviews.  

Students gather information from print and digital sources to form an evidence-based opinion about exchange and the role of money in daily life and purchases.

Students partake in a classroom economy to practice skills of cost-benefit ratio, individual choice and budgets. 

The teacher will post culturally and racially diverse images of “Goods and Services”, around the room.  Images of Goods might include:

Images of Services:

(See Resource #1 for sample images.)

The teacher will explain to students that they will be reading informational texts about Goods and Services. Tell the students that they will also be investigating to find out the answer to the Inquiry Question, “Why do people trade?”   “We are going to investigate how the economy works, and what makes a fair trade.”Students will circulate the “gallery” in small groups, viewing the images and posting words or comments describing what they see. Afterwards, the teacher will ask each group of students to stand by one of the images, to read all the comments posted by that image, to share among themselves what the image represents, and then to share their impressions with the class.  Ask students to consider what all the images have in common.  Guide a collaborative conversation and help students determine that the images all represent people who make a difference. 

The teacher will show WPA era artwork, photographs of murals to the class.  This art depicts farm workers and industry workers engaged in labor. They were painted in the 1930s around southern California. After observing and discussion the subjects and story of the works, students discuss what they see that can be categorized as good, and what is services and talk about the goods and services that are unseen but related to the stories of these laborers. The class discusses and the discussion is recorded on a chart, so that the students can refer to it as evidence and summary for their inquiry task and their opinion writing.

 

The teacher will read “The Tortilla Factory” to the class.  This story tells how a tortilla is made, from seed to plant to tortilla. The story includes the efforts of the workers, farmers and laborers. 

The story and illustrations depict the efforts and dedication of the goods and services at the heart of the tale. 

The teacher will begin with a picture walk, asking students to make predictions about the story. Then, while reading the story, she will pause at key points to ask questions about the setting, characters, artwork, paying special attention to the drawings.  Students will think-pair-share. Questions may include, “What are the goods and services in this story?” “what are the steps to make a tortilla?” The teacher will also help students make connections between the goods and services discussed in the story and in the other activities of the unit. The students will make connections to their prior knowledge and funds of knowledge. 

This literature introduction with a picture walk, discussion, reading, connections to economic concepts, etc- repeats with the other books featured in the literature category of the unit. 

The students and the teacher look at the “Portraits of the American worker” as featured in the National Portrait Gallery online source. The students do a journal about connections, things they observe and notice and their opinions. Students get in to groups where they share their thinking and complete an inquiry task.

 

Tell students that they will be interviewing a family member to find out about people who work, trade, make money and participate in the economy. Brainstorm interview questions with students (e.g. “How do you make money?” “how do you save money” . . .. .? What goods and services do you buy?). 

 

 Once the class has created a list of interview questions, model interview techniques by inviting a staff or faculty colleague to come to the class to be interviewed by you.  Then, have students practice interviewing each other.  Next, ask students to use the class questions to interview a family member, or member of the community.  Students may conduct the interviews in English or in students’ home language.  Students should record the responses in the appropriate language and bring them to class.  Be sure to allow enough time (at least over a weekend) for the interviews to take place.

 

The students discuss what they learned in their interviews and make a poem about how they would make and spend their money.

 

Students use technology to create a budget and plan for their needs by researching costs and making choices about how to spend their money. They must purchase 3 objects they pulled out of a hat- and they are given a budget they must stay within. The students can use sources from the population activity about needs and wants to determine how their family can live and what they need. The students use internet resources, from https://populationeducation.org/product/teaching-population/ we share out  in pairs, the students then share out whole group and we graph as a class what they bought.

The teacher introduces the “classroom economy”. The teacher scaffolds the ideas of the classroom jobs. The students are assigned jobs and will be paid (paper money). The teacher explains that the students participate in a classroom economy that is ongoing through the unit plan. They make money by completing their classroom job. Every day that they are present, complete their classroom job and interact well with their colleagues (fellow students in class) and their boss (the teacher) they are paid. Everyone makes an amount of money that they must budget and save, then they can have choices for purchase at the end of the week. They receive a payment and can make choices about spending or saving. They are fined for poor behavior. They are eligible for a bonus for excellent behavior.