With everything going on in the world today, it is more important than ever to make our lessons hit home. Economic concepts such as Goods and Services need to be wrangled by your students to achieve personal financial understanding.
Social Studies is the prime time for your students to try out all the skills they learned in the morning during Language Arts. It is golden Speaking/ Listening time. There have been several studies about what Social Studies brings to the table. It was found that Schools who included Social Studies on a regular basis scored higher on State and National testing.
Economic Building Blocks
Every state has their own HGSS standards that need to be covered. Goods an Services are taught in first grade, while Public Goods and Services are added in 2nd Grade. A great time to get into that is around tax day.
Primary Social Studies lessons set the tone for further learning. Goods and Services are building blocks for the economy. They create wants and fulfill needs. In first grade, Goods and Services are usually taught in the fall, to provide the platform for other economic concepts.
Designing Your Unit
Most primary teachers teach Goods and Services for 1-2 weeks, depending on the length of your Social Studies Block. Your State standards are the “what”, but the magic is in the designing of your unit, or the “how”.
Once you have chosen the specific standards, the next order of business is to set your parameters:
- How many minutes total do you have total?
- What is your personal teaching style?
- What are the basic needs of your class in the afternoons?
According to current research, the more visuals you use, the more interactive your lessons, and the more games you include, the more effective your Social Studies lesson.
Using Visuals in Social Studies
Over 65% of primary elementary students are visual learners. Research bears up using visuals aids wherever possible, especially with abstract concepts, like goods and services. Pictures automatically make your students more engaged.
If you are going for input, for helping students realize a concept that is present in society, photos are best. If you are to the output stage, and you want the kids to illustrate or draw the concept themselves, clip art is your friend. A few ideas:
- Sort and Classify real world Goods and Services photo cards, using them to spur class discussion
- Show a film or video introducing the concept
- Construct a map of the community including icons for goods and for services available in the business area
- Include pictures and icons on your anchor charts
- Weave your best Goods and Services picture books into story time
- My Favorite: find or create an icon when you introduce the concept. Show it each time you touch on it. Teach the students to draw it. Examples: Goods could be a bag or box. Services could be hands or hats.
Active Learning with Goods & Services
It is so important to craft active Social Studies lessons. Interactive lessons decrease off-task behavior, increase critical thinking skills, and dramatically increase student engagement. Giving your students small choices somewhere in the lesson automatically makes it interactive.
With these things in mind, here are a fe Goods and Service Frames:
- CORNERS: have each student draw a card. At the teacher’s signal, they move to the category (Goods or Services) of the photo. They will share out to their group, noting similarities and differences.
- SCOOT: Teacher will set 12 different stations around the room with a grid and cards. Pairs or Triads will rotate through stations every 2-3 minutes.
- FIND-A-FAMILY: Hand out cards at desks. At signal, students move to large group area, flashing cards to one partner at a time. If they are in the same category, they make a chain, traveling together from then on. If not, they move on. The first complete group to the finish line wins!
- FERRIS WHEEL: Teacher will mark inside and outside circles on floor. Inside circle gets customer cards. Outside Circle gets service providers. (doctor-patient) At signal, outside circle rotates. If the pairs match up, that group sits at seats. Continue until all pairs are matched. Change circles and category, then start again.
Gamify Goods & Services
There have been so many studies about gaming. Simply put, game-based learning works because playing games releases dopamine, and increases the creations of synapses in the brain. This includes all kind of games: digital, board games, small group games and card games.
I usually reserve my games for after a few introductory lessons. I find they need a bit of understanding of the new concept first. Here are a few game ideas:
- Memory Match can be played with goods and service photo cards.
- Charades or Pictionary-like games are great for vocabulary
- This or That: “which is a good?” “Which do you need with toothache?”
- Goods & Services Bingo
- Go Fish for Goods using Goods & Services deck
- Slap for Services using Goods & Services deck
If you need some done-for-you activities, click on one of the covers below.
I know you are busy, so thanks for dropping by! I hope you got a few ideas you can use. Click if you need read more Social Studies Ideas.
Thanks for being part of the education community!
Happy Teaching!
