One of the most important concepts of a society is the way people interact. We have to have community helpers in order to keep our society functioning. The students and I sat down and thought about our classroom society and which jobs were the most important.
We came up with a huge list:
Hall Monitor
Bathroom Monitors
Lunch Manager
Teacher Assistant
Messenger
Floor Board Inspectors (FBI)
Warehouse Manager
Supply Manager
Of course, in order to pay people for those jobs they do we have to have some government created jobs.
Treasurer
Three paymasters
Paper Printers/Cutters
We also discussed how people are responsible for doing things to help make the community a better place to live, work and play by completing simple tasks. They decided they would sharpen pencils in the morning, mark their lunch choices (two things we were continuing to have issues with throughout the day), and leave their areas clean each day. For these simple tasks they would be paid a small fee. This gave them two ways to earn money for the bigger things that lay ahead.
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Scarcity
The most important concept in all of economics. How in the world do you teach it to third graders?
Well, I started out by passing out a bag of M&Ms. I didn't tell them how many to take or who to pass it to next. I just said take some and pass it on. So, of course, by the time it traveled to the other side of the room, those children has less M&Ms. Not a single one of them said a word. They just took the smaller amount and returned the empty bag. No complaining at all. Who gets such wonderful kids?? I am so blessed. Of course, these means teaching this concept that way wasn't going to work.
The next day, I took a desk out of the room. The student just simply went and found a place to sit at a nearby table. Again, not a single word. This wasn't working very well at all!!
The following day, I took two more desks out of the room. Now I am missing a total of three desks. Did they blink? Did it phase them? Nope. Not at all. They went and found other places to sit. I just have way too many small group areas in my room apparently. Not good!!
The following day, I took three more desks out of the room. Now I was missing six desks. Surely someone would act like they noticed. Nope. They all found another place to sit again. They were loving the freedom of not having to sit at the desk, but be able to move freely from small group area to small group area. Have I told you how 'go with the flow" my kids are?? They are amazing.
Finally, towards the very end of the day, a student asked me, "Is the teacher that borrowed our desks going to be bringing them back?" Hallelujah. Someone finally noticed!! I then spend some time talking about scarcity and how it was happening in the room. One of the other students finally chimed in, 'Oh that is just like not having enough M&Ms that first day. You have been trying to teach us by taking things away." My kids really understood it so much better because of the missing desks and the M&Ms.
Hard concept made simple!!
Well, I started out by passing out a bag of M&Ms. I didn't tell them how many to take or who to pass it to next. I just said take some and pass it on. So, of course, by the time it traveled to the other side of the room, those children has less M&Ms. Not a single one of them said a word. They just took the smaller amount and returned the empty bag. No complaining at all. Who gets such wonderful kids?? I am so blessed. Of course, these means teaching this concept that way wasn't going to work.
The next day, I took a desk out of the room. The student just simply went and found a place to sit at a nearby table. Again, not a single word. This wasn't working very well at all!!
The following day, I took two more desks out of the room. Now I am missing a total of three desks. Did they blink? Did it phase them? Nope. Not at all. They went and found other places to sit. I just have way too many small group areas in my room apparently. Not good!!
The following day, I took three more desks out of the room. Now I was missing six desks. Surely someone would act like they noticed. Nope. They all found another place to sit again. They were loving the freedom of not having to sit at the desk, but be able to move freely from small group area to small group area. Have I told you how 'go with the flow" my kids are?? They are amazing.
Finally, towards the very end of the day, a student asked me, "Is the teacher that borrowed our desks going to be bringing them back?" Hallelujah. Someone finally noticed!! I then spend some time talking about scarcity and how it was happening in the room. One of the other students finally chimed in, 'Oh that is just like not having enough M&Ms that first day. You have been trying to teach us by taking things away." My kids really understood it so much better because of the missing desks and the M&Ms.
Hard concept made simple!!
Mini-society creating a common goal
The first step in mini-society is truly creating a society. We spent a lot of time talking about why communities have rules, what happens when people follow the rules, and what happens when people don't follow the rules. We established our direct democracy to handle problems if and when they arose.
Once we had established that our classroom rules would be our society rules, we were ready to move onto the next phase of the plan. We gave our society a name. Eventually, we settled on Smartville. We are a gifted and talented class after all. Then we decided we would be called Smartvillians. These appealed to all of us. Both those who always wanted to be a hero or the villian in our own comic book.
Soon it was time to create the symbols of our society. We each designed a flag for our society. Once all the flags were displayed we voted (direct democracy in action) on which one would represent us. We had the artist recreate the flag on a huge poster that we hung in the hallway outside our door.
Next, we moved onto the currency. Every country has currency as its foundation of economics. We each designed our currency based on our society name and what we thought was important to be on the bills. Once again we all displayed our currency and we voted on the one we thought best suited for our society. Once we had the design we moved it into the printing phase. We designed it on the computer, giving it all of the added touches for real money.
With the formation of our society rules, name, flag, and monetary system in place, we were ready to head into the wonderful world of economics full steam ahead.
Once we had established that our classroom rules would be our society rules, we were ready to move onto the next phase of the plan. We gave our society a name. Eventually, we settled on Smartville. We are a gifted and talented class after all. Then we decided we would be called Smartvillians. These appealed to all of us. Both those who always wanted to be a hero or the villian in our own comic book.
Soon it was time to create the symbols of our society. We each designed a flag for our society. Once all the flags were displayed we voted (direct democracy in action) on which one would represent us. We had the artist recreate the flag on a huge poster that we hung in the hallway outside our door.
Next, we moved onto the currency. Every country has currency as its foundation of economics. We each designed our currency based on our society name and what we thought was important to be on the bills. Once again we all displayed our currency and we voted on the one we thought best suited for our society. Once we had the design we moved it into the printing phase. We designed it on the computer, giving it all of the added touches for real money.
With the formation of our society rules, name, flag, and monetary system in place, we were ready to head into the wonderful world of economics full steam ahead.
Mini-society Training
As soon as Cupcake Wars were over and I was halfway through planning the next amazing adventure for my students, the real world came calling once again. I attended three days of training in order to implement Mini-society into my third grade class. It sounds wonderful. It looks like some interesting activities to get students to engaged in the world of economics. It also means more prep work for the teacher. It is okay though. I think the kids will like this adventure as much as they liked Cupcake Wars.
Mini-society will begin in the next two weeks and run through the first week in March. I will be working on in at least three times a week.
Mini-society information for those of you who are new to the idea (like I was):
http://ted.coe.wayne.edu/sse/wq/nick/mini_society.htm
Mini-society will begin in the next two weeks and run through the first week in March. I will be working on in at least three times a week.
Mini-society information for those of you who are new to the idea (like I was):
http://ted.coe.wayne.edu/sse/wq/nick/mini_society.htm
Blogging who has the time??
I had such great plans to work on this blog every single week. To at least put in all the cool things we did that week and what amazing things I had running through my mind about what to do next. Well, as you can see, didn't happen. I hope to try and get some posts on for the month. I think I am going to go to a end of the month posting. There are going to be numerous posts all popping up on one day. I hope this works a bit better. I hope to really record the things that worked well so I can do them again.
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