Summary
Students will learn the concepts of goods, services and community.
Materials
Additional Resources
Books
- Pancakes, Pancakes, by Eric Carle; ISBN 0-590-44453-0
- The Oxcart Man, by Donald Hall; ISBN0-590-42242-1
- Make Me a Peanut Butter Sandwich, by Ken Robbins;
ISBN 0-590-43551-5
- Kids Career Library, by Newbridge (available from
http://www.newbridgeonline.com/);
Item #810256 (6-book set)
- Our Community, by Newbridge (available from
http://www.newbridgeonline.com/);
Item #810255 (6-book set)
- Community Helpers From A to Z, by Bobbie Kalman;
ISBN 0865054045
- What Is A Community From A to Z, by Bobbie Kalman;
ISBN 0865054142
- On The Town: A Community Adventure, by Judith Casely;
ISBN 0060295848
- Chicken Sunday, by Patricia Polacco; ISBN 0-590-46244-X
- The Quiltmakers Gift, by Jeff Brumbeau; ISBN 0-439-30910-7
- Miss Rumphius, by Barbara Cooney; ISBN 0140505393
- City Green, by DyAnne Di Salvo-Ryan; ISBN 068812786X
Background for Teachers
Students need to understand the concepts of goods, services,
and
community according to these definitions:
Goods—Merchandise;
wares (freight, fabric, etc.). To do or produce
the thing required.
Services—Work done or a duty performed for another or others.
Community—All the people living in a particular district
or city. A group of people living together as a smaller social unit within
a
larger one, and having interests, work, etc. in common.
Intended Learning Outcomes
2. Develop social skills and ethical responsibility.
3. Demonstrate responsible emotional and cognitive behaviors.
5. Understand and use basic concepts and skills.
Instructional Procedures
Invitation to Learn
Have the class generate a list of all the places in the community they
have visited this past week.
Instructional Procedures
Day 1
- Build background for the words you feel your class may need
(e.g., shear, spinning wheel, lingonberries, weaver, garnet,
tailor, porcelain, etc.).
Read Anna Needs A New Coat.
- Discuss how Anna’s mom had
to trade goods for services that she
needed. (A gold watch for wool from the farmer, a lamp for the
woman to spin the wool into yarn, a garnet necklace to the
woman to weave the yarn into cloth, a porcelain teapot for the
tailor to make the coat.)
- From the story, create a chart listing the goods
and services
mentioned.
- From the chart, generate a definition for goods and a definition
for services and tell how they are different.
Homework: Interview an adult
about his/her job. Two questions
to be included in the interview are, “What do you do at your
job?” and “How does it contribute to the community?”
Day 2
- Students share information they obtained
from their interview
about occupations.
- As a class, decide whether each job provides a good,
service, or
both.
- Add each job to the class chart in the appropriate column.
Day 3
- Prior to this activity, assemble an Occupation
Chest using items
on the Occupation Chest Contents List. To support struggling
readers, attach a 3-D object that could be used in each occupation.
Give each student a slip of paper/3D object with either a good or
a service listed. In small groups, have the students decide whether each
occupation provides a good, a service, or both and
tell why it belongs there.
- As a class, have students place their slip/object
in the proper
category and justify their thinking. Decide whether the class
agrees or disagrees.
Day 4
- Take a walk around the community and take
pictures of some of
the businesses that are found there OR get copies of the logos
from as many businesses as possible that are located within your
community.
- Create a Venn Diagram and sort logos or pictures into proper
categories.
Day 5
- Read books from the Kids Career Library or Our
Community book sets. These books are great expository texts that may be
used to add additional occupations to the list already created and
tell what each occupation does to aid a community.
- Each student will create
one page for a class book by selecting an
occupation, drawing a picture, and responding to the following:
- What will
you do at your job?
- Tell whether you will be providing a good,
a service, or both.
- Explain why your job is important to the community.
Extensions
- Write thank you letters
to people in your community who provide
needed goods and services. Allow special needs students to
dictate what they would like to say, and you be the scribe. They
can draw a picture to accompany it.
- Invite parents in to discuss their
occupation with the class and tell
how it contributes to the community. Consider having a translator
available to accommodate ELL students/parents if needed.
- After interviewing
an adult about his/her occupation, students
create a brochure that includes the following information:
- What work is done
at the job?
- Tell whether it provides a good, a service, or both.
- Tell why
that job is important to the community.
- As a class or a grade level,
do a service project for someone in
your community (e.g., tie quilts, send letters to soldiers, sing at a
rest home, make books and read them to a Kindergarten class,
work with local police to create a kids’ safety program, adopt
a
local park or monument, set up a food or toy drive, etc.).
- Go on a service
field trip to clean parks, plant flowers, etc. Take
pictures of your service projects/field trip and use them as part of
a presentation/program for parents on serving others.
- Make a map (or a 3-D
diorama) of a downtown block in your
community. Label businesses and tell whether they provide a
good, a service, or both. (You could use a grid system to tie this
activity to the math concept of coordinates.)
Family Connections
- Students discuss with family members
what they have learned
about goods and services, and bartering and trading.
- Have parents take
children on a family field trip around the
community, pointing out goods and services found there.
Assessment Plan
- Tell the difference in goods and services and list three of each.
Explain why they are both important in a community or reflect on
your service projects/fieldtrip.
- Students complete an interactive or
shared writing activity about
the community, including how different jobs help to meet the
needs of members of your community.
- Day 5 activity.
- Using the Goods and Services Acrostic Poem handout,
students
create a cinquain or acrostic poem on an occupation, including
how that job helps the community and whether it is a good or a
service.
Bibliography
Research Basis
Cobine, G. (1995). Effective use of student journal writing, ERIC Digest
#378587.
Student journal writing can connect reading, writing, and discussing
through activities that accommodate diverse learning styles and that
further students’ linguistic development. The various uses of journal
writing can be incorporated into one compact student notebook as
discussed in this digest article.
Strangman, N., Hall, T. & Meyer, A. (n.d.) Graphic organizers and implications
for Universal
design for learning: curriculum enhancement report. The Access Center (Available
at
http://www.k8accesscenter.org/training_resources/udl/GraphicOrganizersHTML.asp)
This paper examines the research on educational applications of
graphic organizers in grades K-12. Graphic organizers come in many
types, and have been widely researched for their effectiveness in
improving learning outcomes for students with and without disabilities.
Scraper, K. (2002). Word study through sorting. Educators Publishing Service.
(Available at
www.epsbooks.com/downloads/
articles/Word_Study_through_Sorting.pdf)
As a method of word study, word sorting addresses a wide
developmental range and a variety of needs. Research continues to show
that this ability to recognize that written words are made up of letters that
represent sounds is one of the strongest predictors of successful reading.