Building Businesses with Economics!!

In our third grade social studies goals we are to learn about the workings of the economy. The new standards are a bit vague and so it was time to come up with some new ways to learn about the economy and still have fun. I decided to create a project to go along with our goals. In the past we have tried mini economies and making products but the new goals are more of a focus on the resources, location and vocabulary. So, in this project we will discuss the key terms that are in the curriculum and then the students will work in collaborative groups to create a business. I don't have any pictures to show as we are just getting started in this unit. I will post more once we have finished. If you want to check out my project it is available at my TpT store. Click on the picture below to see the product. I hope that my students will learn how much goes into a starting a business and all of the decisions that need to be made in order for one to succeed. If all goes well there will be some wonderful, creative thinking and planning going on!

Charlotte's Web Fun

Every December we read Charlotte's Web as our novel study for the quarter. By third grade most of my kids have either read the book or seen one of the versions of the movie. Therefore, there are no surprises to be held in the reading. So, why still do it you ask? Well, there are a few reasons but mainly I like my students to read a book that was written many years ago to see the differences in language and the time period. Also, it is a good lesson for my students about going deeper with a text. Since many of them know the story line we don't make predictions or have too much discussion about who the characters are on the surface. Rather we look at why the author wrote this story, make connections to our lives, look at the themes in the text, learn new vocabulary, and take time to look at characterizations of the main characters. We even have a math lesson on Roman Numerals since the chapters are labeled that way.


At the end of the unit we completed two culminating activities. The first activity was to create a theme poster. We had previously discussed the different themes found in the text and examples to support the theme. Then, the students made posters illustrating the theme. Most of them chose Friendship which you can see in the examples below.

The second activity we did was a Charter Activity. After discussing the charter traits of the main characters in the book (mainly Charlotte, Wilbur, Templeton, and Fern) we begin discussing how people can have those same character traits. I tell the students to think about which one they are most like and that we will do an activity about that. Before the lesson I printed color pictures of these four main characters and hung them up in different parts of the room. I told the students I would know which character they chose when they stood underneath the picture. After choosing each student made a craft. They use a craft stick, a picture of the character, and a description. Each student has to write about why they are like that character and an example of a time they acted like the character. When everyone was finished the class came back and sat in a large circle and shared what they wrote about themselves. If you are interested in this activity it is up for grabs on my TpT store. Click on the picture below to go to my store.

Here are a few pics of my kids and their character sticks. They were very excited!

We really had fun learning so much about this novel and going deeper with our thinking.