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VIRGINIAECONOMICEDUCATORAWARDS 2022CREATING AN ECONOMICS-MINDED CLASSROOMCOMMUNITY Smithland Elementary Harrisonburg City Public SchoolsMichelle HuntLESSON PLAN:

CREATING ANECONOMICS-MINDEDCLASSROOM COMMUNITYPlastic school coins or real coinsIndividual student “bank”Items to fill a classroom storeJob applicationBudgetMaterials for students to create and run businesses in a classroom minieconomyMy Classroom Business packetEarning moneyCounting moneySpending and saving moneyEconomic choices, benefits, and costsApplying for a jobBudgeting money you earn to pay for expensesPaying rent and billsRunning a businessGoods, Services, Producers, ConsumersNatural, Capital, and Human ResourcesGrade Level: Elementary SchoolMaterials:Time Required: One school year (about 9 months)Lesson Description: In this lesson, students will spend all school year practicing a variety ofeconomics concepts. The lessons will build on each other throughout the yearand increase in complexity. The students will have opportunities to practiceearning and counting money, saving and spending money, applying for andholding jobs, paying bills, budgeting their money, and running a small-scaleclassroom business.Economics and/or Personal Finance Topics:

2.8 The student will describe natural resources, human resources, and capitalresources 2.10 The student will explain that scarcity (limited resources) requires peopleto make choices about producing and consuming goods and service2.7 The student will a) count and compare a collection of pennies, nickels,dimes, and quarters whose total value is $2.00 or less; and b) use the centsymbol, dollar symbol decimal point to write a value of money.Review first grade economics SOLs 1.7 1.8 1.9Standards: Procedure: This project started in the month of September. At the beginning of each monththroughout the year, a new concept was taught and worked into practice in theclassroom. In September, the students had finished learning about civics,communities, and the importance of rules and laws. The students were told thatthe classroom would function as a community throughout the year. Thestudents’ job in the community was coming to school each day. They would bepaid 2 cents per day for coming to school and would keep the money in theirpersonal bank, which was a plastic box in their desk. The students were told thatthey could earn additional pennies for doing extra jobs in the classroomcommunity. The teacher also explained that sometimes in a community, peoplebreak the rules or laws. If this happens, they may have to pay a fine. Studentswould be charged a fine from their money for breaking the rules and laws of theclassroom. The students reviewed the value of a penny and practiced countinggroups of pennies from their boxes throughout the month and writing the valueof their collection of pennies using a cent sign. At the end of the month, theytook a quiz on identifying and counting pennies.In October, the students were introduced to our class store. Twice a monththroughout the school year, the students could bring the money they hadearned to the class store to shop. They had to count the money in their box andwrite the value down. They could then spend the money on items that werecategorized by price (10 cents, 20 cents, 30 cents, 50 cents, etc.) The studentswere taught how to write the value of a group of coins using a dollar sign. Theywere expected to write the value with both a cent sign and a dollar sign for therest of the year.Creating an Economics-Minded Classroom CommunityBy: Michelle Hunt

Procedure: In November, the students were able to start earning nickels for completingbigger jobs around the classroom. Throughout the month, they focused on skipcounting by 5’s and counting groups of nickels as well as groups of nickels andpennies. They took a quiz on these concepts at the end of the month. Thismonth, the students were also taught about job applications. The teachershowed examples of real job applications, and explained that in a community,people have to apply for jobs they want to have. At the end of the month, thestudents completed their first job applications to apply for the classroom job theywanted to have for the month of December. The job options were line leader,door holder, assistant, custodian, payroll (passing out the pennies the studentsearned for coming to school each day), mail carrier (to deliver mail in our schoolwide mail system), and substitute (these students filled in for anyone who wasabsent throughout the month, and got paid for each day that they completed ajob for an absent student). On the job application, the students had to fill outtheir full name, age, birthday, the job they were applying for, and why they wouldbe great at that job. The class also discussed how the student who is hired foreach job should get paid. The students decided that the jobs that had to do morefrequent work should get paid more, and the class voted on how much each jobshould get paid at the end of the month. The amounts they decided on rangedfrom 9 cents to 20 cents. For the rest of the school year, students applied for jobsand were hired to do their job for a month at a time, and were paid the amountthat the class voted on at the end of the month. In December, the students had several morning meetings on the wordresponsibility. As part of these meetings, students learned that they needed to beresponsible for their own personal classroom supplies. The class discussed that ina community, people have to buy new supplies if they lose them or run out ofsomething. For the rest of the school year, students were expected to pay fornew supplies from their personal banks. The class voted on how much each typeof supply should cost (new dry erase marker was 5 cents, a new crayon of aspecific color was 2 cents, etc), and these prices were posted and used for therest of the school year. The students also experienced using their money to buysupplies for a project for the first time in December. Each student had theopportunity to make a red and white necklace to wear together on a school spiritday (twin day) if they wanted to. The string for the necklace was 5 cents, and thebeads were 2 for 1 cent. The students could choose how many beads they wantedand paid as they made the necklace. Creating an Economics-Minded Classroom CommunityBy: Michelle Hunt

Procedure: *An interesting development in the month of December was that the studentsstarted exploring some economic concepts on their own that they hadn’texplicitly learned yet. Students who didn’t want to pay for new supplies begantrading each other for what they needed. (For example, if a student needed a redcrayon, they might trade an extra crayon of another color or an extra glue stickwith a friend to get it.) We had an impromptu lesson on bartering at this point,and the students were expected to use the word barter for this type ofarrangement for the rest of the year. The students also started to pay each otherfor some classroom jobs they didn’t have time to do. (An example if this is thatone day a student got picked up early and didn’t have time to cut out his wordstudy cards. He agreed to pay a classmate 3 cents to cut them out for him.) Thestudents were allowed to continue paying each other to do jobs as long as itwasn’t anything academic like completing actual school work.In January, dimes were added to the potential earnings. The class focused onskip counting by tens as well as counting groups of dimes, nickels and dimes,dimes and pennies, and dimes, nickels, and pennies. The students took a quiz onthese concepts at the end of the month. In January, students also started takinghome weekly homework packets. They were told that they could earn a dime forreturning their homework packet completed at the end of the week. Theassistants were in charge of checking the homework and the payroll studentshanded out dimes. The students were also told that they could earn dimes forreturning any important school papers such as field trip permission slips,progress reports, etc. Another important lesson in the month of January was onmaking economic choices, including labeling the cost and benefit of a decision.Students learned that scarcity requires people to make decisions about how theyspend their money. For the rest of the school year, when students shopped at theclass store, they were asked to name the benefit of their decision and some ofthe costs of their decision. In February, the students were introduced to many important concepts. First,they were told that they would need to start paying rent for their desk and utilitybills each month from their earnings. They learned that rent is money paid tooccupy a space, and utility bills mean paying for things like electricity and water.Rent was 25 cents a month and utilities were 15 cents a month. The students alsolearned that a budget is a plan for how to earn and spend money. The studentswere guided through filling out a budget to list the money that they already had in their banks from the previous month, and money they could expect to earn from coming to school, completing homework, and being paidCreating an Economics-Minded Classroom CommunityBy: Michelle Hunt

Formative assessments on counting the coins we have been using Teacher observations while watching students count money Formativeassessments and teacher observations throughout the year as we learnedand applied a new concept. Procedure: for a classroom job if they had one. They subtracted the money they needed topay for rent and utilities to get a projected bank balance for the end of themonth. They then had a lesson on saving vs. spending money. The main focus ofthis lesson was on why it is important to save money for unexpected expenses(such as paying a fine for breaking a rule or buying replacement school supplies).The students listed how much of their projected money they planned to save,and how much they could spend that month at the class store. They filled outbudgets at the beginning of each month for the remainder of the school year. The last big lesson of the school year took place over three weeks from the end ofApril through the beginning of May. The students learned the majority of thesecond grade economics unit and created their own businesses to run a small-scale version of a classroom mini economy. The students had to purchasesupplies for their businesses from their personal banks. (They shared the costsamong all of the business partners.) When students shopped from each others’businesses, they paid with money from their banks. When teachers shopped,they were given coins to spend. The businesses collected the money from allsales in a baggie, and split the money up among the business partners at theend of the project. During the first two weeks of this projects, studentscompleted a packet together that reviewed the vocabulary for good, service,producer, consumer, human resource, natural resource, capital resource. Thepacket then guided them through applying these terms to their business as wellas the logistics of naming, advertising, and planning to buy supplies. During thistime, students were also using independent tiem to create their goods, practicetheir services, and create advertisements for their businesses. During the lastweek, the students spent three days running their businesses, and then took aquiz to show their understanding of how the economics vocabulary they learnedapplied to their businesses. During the last week of school, the students wrapped up our year long classroomeconomy by spending the money they had left in their personal banks. Theycould shop at the class store, or they could use the money to buy supplies to docrafts or other projects. Assessment: Creating an Economics-Minded Classroom CommunityBy: Michelle Hunt

Checking job applications and budgets Formative assessments during the classroom mini economy to check forunderstanding of the terms good, service, producer, consumer, naturalresources, human resources, capital resources, scarcity, economic choice,cost, benefit Assessment: Extension & Modifications: SPED/below grade level students: less nickels/dimes and more pennies to countin their earnings, adult support in filling out applications and budgets.Students who are ready for a challenge could assist in running the class store. Upload of Supplementary Materials: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1MX_uKcRoI4sRT4W2i-LYpt36SRSzP-7X?usp=share_linkExplain how this lesson/unit teaches or reinforces the economics/personalfinance concepts above: Students learned about earning money, counting money, and spending andsaving money and economic choices by earning money and spending theirmoney on rent, bills, and school supplies. Students learned about budgets byfilling out a paper budget to plan how they would spend and save their earningsfor each month. Students learned about running a business, goods, services,producers, consumers, and natural, human, and capital resources by completingthe classroom economy project. Creating an Economics-Minded Classroom CommunityBy: Michelle HuntMichelle HuntSmithland Elementary Harrisonburg City Public Schools