Lesson 5: How to get what we need and want
NOTE: This will be the final lesson of the unit. While there are more lessons that could be developed to fit between Lesson 4 and Lesson 5, I labeled this final lesson as Lesson 5 simply for continuity purposes on the website. It should in no way suggest that this unit should end after five lessons.
Lesson Focus: What are needs and wants? How do I decide between my needs and wants?
Grade: Kindergarten
Time Suggested: 30-40 min.
Materials needed
Standards: NYS Social Studies for Kindergarten
- Families have needs and wants
- People make economic decisions and choices
Objectives
Opening Activities
Main Learning Activities
Closure
After the "rug" presentations, students will be asked to identify their favorite place to get a good or service, what the good or service is, and if it is a want or a need.
Assessment & Record Keeping
Post-Lesson Follow-ups
Lesson Focus: What are needs and wants? How do I decide between my needs and wants?
Grade: Kindergarten
Time Suggested: 30-40 min.
Materials needed
- Neighborhood carpet (the kind with roads, intersections, and buildings)
- Students' projects
- One small toy car (or bike or some sort of small vehicle that can be maneuvered around the rug)
- Computer with internet access and projector
Standards: NYS Social Studies for Kindergarten
- Concepts/Themes – Needs and Wants
- Content Understandings – Basic human needs and wants
- Families have needs and wants
- Concepts/Themes – Interdependence
- Content Understandings – People helping one another to meet needs and wants
- People make economic decisions and choices
Objectives
- Students will be able to identify the ways in which needs and wants are fulfilled in their community.
- Students will be able to identify careers in the community.
- Students will know how people utilize the goods and services available to them to fulfill their needs and wants.
Opening Activities
- Students will find a place on the Neighborhood Rug for their 3D Representation and take a seat around the carpet.
Main Learning Activities
- A student will be given the toy car first. The teacher will ask them to drive to their community site. The student will then identify: what the site is, whether they provide a good/service, the career title of a person who works there, and whether it provides a want or a need. This will continue until each child as presented their own site.
- As a class, students will list the places they identified in the community and a Google Map will be made, with pins in all of the places that the students investigated. The school will also be pinned so students can see the distance between the community goods/service locations and their school.
Closure
After the "rug" presentations, students will be asked to identify their favorite place to get a good or service, what the good or service is, and if it is a want or a need.
Assessment & Record Keeping
- Students will be assessed on their representation of their place (if it is labeled and includes a visual), their ability to identify the career title of someone who works there, whether they can identify whether it provides a good/service, an example of a good/service provided there, and whether it would be considered a want or need (and they can justify why that is).
Post-Lesson Follow-ups
- What went well? How do I know?
- What needs more work in the next class/ lesson?
- What activities should I do differently next time?
- Did any of the students have trouble with their presentations? If so, was it because they didn't understand the material or was there another reason (nervous, sick, tired, etc)?
- The neighborhood carpet will be available for students to use in the classroom for a week or so after the unit ends.