Gallery of Famous Southeasterners

For our social studies unit, I like to do an art/biography project.  Here's one I got out of a book Regions of the USA by The Mailbox. 

First, I have my kids write a biography on a famous person in the southeast region.  Then, they copy it onto scroll paper.  I found a good template here.

The pictures come from the Regions of the USA book.  They glue them onto white cardstock into 6 X 9 pieces. 

The kids glue pasta around the picture and then paint the pasta and any of the showing cardstock gold.

Then, I hot glue the pasta frame to black construction paper (because it's so heavy), and regulary Elmer's glue the scroll to the same construction paper, side by side. 

Then put them on a bulletin board titled Gallery of Famous Southeasterners. (I forgot the word famous in my display!)

Economy Unit

We started our economy unit this week.  It will end up being a three week unit.  This week, we learned some vocabulary and read a lesson in our social studies book on the subject.  I opened the unit with one of my favorite children's books called Roxaboxen by Alice McLerren.  We were able to use this book to talk about things like goods vs. services, supply & demand, opportunity cost, and free-enterprise.  Tomorrow we will make a T-chart to brainstorm possible goods and services we could do in our classroom.  We will talk about what people would want to buy in our class.  This will also teach the difference between goods and services.  Next week we'll get more in-depth about the ins and outs of market economy.  The kids will make a business plan / loan application to submit to me in order to get the money to start their business.  Below is the letter I send home to parents detailing the unit more.

Introducing…

“The Market”

Dear Parents,
Next week the fourth grade will start a new social studies unit.
“The Market” is an economics unit that the children will participate in for the next three weeks (5/3-5/19). The objectives of the unit are to introduce the students to the following basic economic principles:

Ø Needs/Wants
Ø Goods/Services
Ø Opportunity Cost
Ø Barter/Exchange
Ø Saving/Spending
Ø Producers/Consumers
Ø Supply/Demand/Scarcity
Ø Expenses/Profit
Ø Advertising

This unit is an introduction to these principles, not a complete mastery of skills.
(Sorry, they won’t quite be ready to be your financial advisor this summer.)

During the next few weeks, the children will be learning the basic elements of these principles while preparing for Market Day on Tuesday, May 18. Each child will decide on a good or a service to sell at the market. If they choose a good, they will be responsible for making it at home to have for sale on the 18th. The kids will have 60 students attending their store on the 18th. Three classes will be “open” during that time. Use this information to determine how much of the good to bring. Do not bring the goods until the 18th.

May 18th: Our class, along with the other East end classes, sells goods and services to the classes on the West end of the hallway.

May 19th: Our class, along with the other East end classes, buys goods and services from the classes on the West end of the hallway.

The business who makes the most profit will be rewarded with the honorable “Best in Business Award”.

Details:
1. Bank Loan: Students can go into business by themselves or work with one business partner. Some advantages of working by yourself are that they have sole control of the ideas of your business. They will also earn all the profit themselves and not have to split it. Having a business partner has advantages too though! They will get a $20 loan per person, and they can spend $10 of real money per person if they choose to. However, they will have to split the profits (and pay back $20 per person for their loan). Students will fill out Loan Application to estimate sales, costs, and profits. They will request items to rent form me such as computers, karaoke machine, desks, chairs, smart board, etc. On this business plan, they will tell me what good or service they will sell and get a $20/person loan (play money) if the loan is approved.

They will have to pay back the loan amount in full when Our Market Day is over.

2. Goods and Services: Students choose a good or service to sell. All goods will be made at home ahead of time.
*Some examples of goods: brownies, bookmarks, friendship bracelets, key
chains, artwork, smoothies, ice cream sundaes, sandwiches, etc.
*Some examples of services: karaoke machine (Mrs. Kuchar has one), arcade
(computer games), massage, fingernail painting, hairstyling, etc.

If your family decides to spend real money (remember no more than $10.00 per person in the business), that will cut into their “play money” profit. (Children bring in their receipt and they will subtract up to $10 from their profit on the business plan sheet.)

5. Human Resources: Students will pay each of their employees $5 from the bank loan. They will use this in the Market Day for the West End classes on May 19th.

6. Misc Expenses: Students can rent desks, tables, computers, etc. from the teacher (up to $10).


Business Plan Example: Bank Loan -$20 (one person on the example)

Subtract the expenses…
Goods (receipts total for real money) -$10
Human Resources (only one person on this example)-$5
Misc Expenses -$3(chair for $1 and a desk for $2)
Add the sales … (say this person earned $50 on Market Day)
Profit = $50 - $20 - $5 - $3 - $10 = $12
Please remember that it is not necessary that your family spend real money, only optional!
FYI: All money earned and spent at school will be play money.

The Market will be held in the morning on May 18th. Parents are welcome to attend.
We will even give you play money to spend.
Thank you in advance for your support of this special opportunity. The kids absolutely love this unit, and they learn so much as it provides a wonderful school-to-world connection. If you have any questions please contact your me for further clarification.


Sincerely,

Mrs. Kuchar

Iditarod Activities

1. After the students pick a mucher, I have them make a trading card with the musher's picture and some facts.

2. I teach the students that it takes a lot of money to raise all the dogs and keep them healthy. In groups, I have them come up with a list of things they would need to use money for throughout the year. After this activity, I tell them that they need to desing a t-shirt to sell in order to raise money for their musher. (They won't really be selling these t-shirts) I had my students include the musher's name and IDITAROD 2010 somewhere in the design.

Siberian Husky Visit

We had a puppy Siberian Husky visit us today to wrap up our Iditarod unit. Turns out she's not old enough to race! ;-)

Social Studies Unit - Pacific States

What a jammed packed Pacific States unit this month! With only 5 states, we did some really fun stuff! First, for Alaska, we followed the Iditarod... I still haven't posted those pictues, have I!??! We followed the race on a bulletin board sized map of Alaska. Tomorrow we are having a Luau for our Pacific States Unit Wrap Up! I posted pictures of the bulletin board display (there will by yummy tropical food on that counter tomorrow too!)

The Iditarod

For the week before the Iditarod started, my class spent about an hour a day learning about the history, ins-and-outs, and mushers for the 2010 Iditarod. Even though we live in Kansas, this is always the second favorite unit of the year. (The first favorite is our market economy unit, and I'll talk about that more when we get there!)

I always create a bulletin board that has a map of the trail. Then I make a little 1 inch sled dog picture and glue it on magnet. The students research a musher of their choice and write their bib number on the sled dog picture. I teach the kids how to track their musher throughout the race, and they move their little magnet along the trail during the week of the race. This year the race ended over Spring Break (which is this week), so I'm looking forward to Monday when the kids come back to see if anyone followed their musher to the end!

I got most of the ideas from www.iditarod.com, like the tracking form. I also create my own things like a t-shirt design. I'll post pictures on Monday of all these things. :-)