Every year in we have a carnival in third grade to celebrate the end of our economics unit and put the principles we learned into action. Kiddos get to experience opportunity cost when they have to choose what booth to spend their very last ticket on. They experience scarcity when all the prizes at a booth are gone. Each kiddo gets to be a consumer while they play at the carnival and a producer when it is their turn to run a booth. They get to determine if their booth will be based on giving out goods or providing services. They LOVE this unit and I have kiddos from past years coming back and telling me that they still remember the Econ Carnival. How cool! I am including some pictures from past carnivals to give you an idea of what it is like. I have also included a freebie smartboard lesson about Human, Natural, and Capital Resources. If you would like to download my 3-4 week unit with the lesson plans,smartboard activities, activity sheets, letter to parents, carnival schedule, quiz and test, visit my Teachers Pay Teachers Store by clicking the picture below.  Download this Economic Resources Smartboard lesson for FREE!  I hope you enjoy! Amy

Share & Help Me Grow Today, we are talking about nutrition, which is lesson five in Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology. While The Homeschool Scientist and I might have taken a week off, I am coming back stronger than ever. Must be all the vitamins I have been eating. Or, it could be because I […]

Through the marginal analysis that involves looking at less time, extra accuracy and customer service, businesses like Starbucks maximize profit margins.

Your kids come running in after enjoying some nature study time outside, and they’re ready for a snack.

That's what we're doing in Miss Law's Class this week! No it's not a field trip... it's economics! Since we are at our first job, school, we need to learn about earning, spending, and saving. We are working and earning money to be able to go to the movies on Friday. This how we earn money. This is how we can lose money. This is a chart for reference. This is how it works in our classroom. Each morning after students unpack and go to the bathroom, I greet them at the door with $1. Our day goes pretty much as usual except that I am banking through out the day. Every time I catch someone doing a good job following the rules I pay them a penny. When I catch someone not following the rules, they pay me a penny. At the end of the day, I collect work and pay them a dime for everything that they turn in. Whatever is not turned in, they pay me a dime. We do the same thing for homework. If their name is under the happy face at the end of the day, I pay them a quarter. If their name is under the sad face, they pay me a quarter. At the end of each day, we go around the room and they tell how much money they have. They are learning that they need to earn and save their money in order to be able to buy what they want. We are also trading money all day. It's GREAT money practice also! Each day I also tempt them by selling an item. On Monday, I sold stickers for 25 cents. I only had 1 purchase. On Tuesday, I sold a piece of candy for 50 cents. I had more buyers. Some refused to be tempted! Today I sold very large stickers for 75 cents. We LOVE stickers in my class! I had no buyers. They were too busy counting their money. This has been lots of fun for everyone, including me! They have no idea how much they are learning! Click on any of the pictures above to download my charts. ENJOY!

Financial Books for Kids: The Toothpaste Millionaire, a child entrepreneur book teaches business lessons & also see how to make toothpaste.

Color in this Awesome Anatomy page on the respiratory system and learn about how we breathe!

So my bloggy friends... apparently on Friday someone decided to take my well mannered, extremely wonderful class of 25 third graders and replaced them with some loud, unruly, rude children. I'm thoroughly convinced there is NO possible way those kids that were in room 127 on Friday are my kiddos. I'm horrified at what 8:50 a.m. will bring my way. I pray to the school Gods that they bring back my normal children for the next 4 days. Heck, I don't even care if they get crazy on Thursday, be my guest. I'll trade an INSANE Thursday for a normal, calm Monday-Wednesday. Please. I'm begging you! On another note, I'm so jealous of everyone already on break, but with that said, I'm ubber excited to not be on break until Friday. I feel like when we used to have the week before Christmas off, you spent all of your break getting ready for the holidays, then only had a few days to recoup. I will get off Friday and not return until January 9. I'm a million times excited about it! So here's a few things we've been busy creating. I've been doing all projects with my wonderful neighbor/teammate (so no, I don't have 60 kids in my class LOL) Mrs. Jumps Snowglobes (via 3rd graders) {we modified/enlarged them a bit to fit more writing} They did a fabulous job!! Here's the dictionary project!! They did AWESOME!! :) I'm not really sure where "He's like a little ruler and a little king" came from... {idioms central} {truthfully I'm embarrassed to put these on here - but these are both things I couldn't find much help with, so I thought maybe my ugly little charts can help someone out there in bloggy land - yes I'm a perfectionist who can't stand anything handwritten} So that brings me this... My kiddos are going to be making their handprint ornaments for their parents tomorrow. I know, I know they do it every year, but I think it's cute to see how your kids hands have grown over the years. I am also making the parents an ornament for them to have. So here is what I made... it's hard to get the full picture because I blurred out the kids faces, but you get the point! {24 clear ornaments - Hobby Lobby} [plus I have a child that doesn't celebrate Christmas so I'm making his Mom a frame!] {boys got green background paper, plus green/black ribbon} {girls got red background paper, plus red/white ribbon} After trying to make some last night in the dark, I gave up and left a mess on the floor. I returned to them this morning when there was a lot of light and quickly finished all of them. I was getting very frustrated last night though!! I also got each kid a copy of Sideways Stories from Wayside School because they were $1 each from Scholastic. Can't beat that!! On a side note, we have a radio station here in Chicago with a morning show called "Eric and Kathy" I absolutely LOVE them. I get very upset if they're not on in the morning. So I'm a "fan" of them on Facebook. They randomly post things on there, like questions about holidays and things. I always look, but hardly ever respond. Well I took an afternoon nap, yes I adore napping! When I woke up {usually I'm grumpy as it is when I wake up from anything} I see a post that says something along the lines of "Has everyone's children brought home their homemade ornaments yet?" I thought cute! Let's see what kids are bringing home. The responses I saw ENRAGED me!! People were complaining about their typical "foam" picture frames, and "all 3 of my kids brought home the same ornament, they did every year!" People then proceeded to say teacher's lack creativity and some said, "well I guess they won't put much thought into the gift, I won't put much thought into their gift either." So I went into a rage-ful post back to those people about how I spend thousands of dollars on my classroom, plus $30 on books, plus probably another $30 or more on the ornament supplies for them, and me to make. I also said I have to pay for presents for my own family and I don't make a ton, so I do what I can. I mentioned that it takes an hour or 2 to make ornaments for 30 kids. Needless to say I was NOT happy! I couldn't believe how ungrateful they were being. So the point of this is that even though I don't have kids, I appreciate everyone who takes the time to make things with their kids, even if it is a "thoughtless cheap foam frame" {ugh, angry posting this now!}. Please don't let anyone make you feel as under appreciated as I felt when I read that post!! Anyway peeps :) I hope you are enjoying your vacation or last week before the holidays! I wish you the best of luck with your kiddos behaving! If anyone wants directions on the ornaments let me know and I'll make a post, it took me a few tries to really figure out what I should do in order to get them to work! Night lovelies! ;-)

Financially savvy kids are future leaders!

Here are just some of the activities we will be doing for our dental health unit! Here is a fun poem! This graph kicked off our unit! I made these teeth anchor charts to discuss facts about dental health. After going through the dental health anchor charts, the students will sort these True and False statements onto the correct toothbrush. Click HERE to download

Are you tired and drained of thinking appropriate learning objectives for your lesson plan or course syllabus? Here's my compilation of learning objectives for Science Five lessons.

Bettina Bien Greaves put this volume together as a one-stop primer in economics that includes the best economic writing she had run across.They are arranged by topic to cover the division of labor, prices, profits, property, competition, saving and investment, environment, antitrust, money and banki

In this animation, Ray Dalio explains How The Economic Machine Works. He covers important points such as credit, interest rates, leveraging and deleveraging.

I'm super excited to start the first of a series of posts on how I use Thinking Maps (graphic organizers) in my classroom to teach about the American Revolution. 5 things you should know about Thinking Maps-- 1. They provide students with a way to visualize and make sense of new content. 2. If you teach them early in the year, students begin to use them independently. 3. They are great for interactive notebooks. Seriously great. 4. You don't have to make copies to use them. Pencil, paper, done. 5. You can use them with all content. Check out my Thinking Maps board on Pinterest for some ideas. Let's start with the Brace Map. Brace Maps show part to whole relationships. When teaching the Declaration of Independence, I love to have my 5th graders start with the primary source. The actual document. It's quite overwhelming at first glance. Fancy language and unfamiliar words abound! So, I start by drawing the skeleton of the map, showing students that we can look at the Declaration of Independence in four parts. Then, we are able to read through and stop, summarize, and connect to what we've learned about the events leading to the American Revolution. Check it out, below! Come back soon for more on using Thinking Maps to teach about the American Revolution. --The Pensive Sloth Blog Facebook Pinterest

This updated download contains four (4) ready-to-use economics activities. Each one includes teaching suggestions and a full-sized answer key. Just print and copy! These fun and easy activities can be used to introduce, review, and/or assess common economics concepts. This download contains ...

Third grade teacher's blog. Science experiments for kids. Teaching social studies- geography, historical people, economics for kids.

Engage your kids in counting change, spending wisely and financial literacy with this awesome list of the best books to teach money math concepts.

Use this cute Mouse Money for economic activities, incentives, and games. This play money design uses a realistic currency background with a central portrait of a cute mouse. Use different colored paper or shrink print size to fit your specific needs. Thanks for stopping by to check out my produc...

45 states have already adopted Common Core, but most people don't even know what it is. Here's why it's a bad idea for our schools.