Wants and Needs Fun!

 We’re all up in our economics portion of our communities curriculum.  This means teaching students all about wants and needs. 

I love this unit for 3 reasons:

1} They inherently get it.
2} This is real life stuff, people.  I know grown adults {me included} that constantly need to weigh what exactly they NEED vs. what they WANT.
3} I made up some fun craftivities to reinforce the concept.  And let’s be honest, we all NEED craftivties in our lives.

After a quick discussion on wants versus needs we whip up these cuties:

{Looks like this kiddo prefers his shelter in the form of a big, brown cave}

We put our needs on our “heart” because we need them to survive.  Students were allowed to choose which needs were most important to them.  I strung all of our needs together and they’re hanging out on our white board.



They look sooo cute I might add!

Wants are like wishes, so we put our wantiest {made-up word} wants on genie bottles!







I didn’t get a chance to hang up our wants yet because we were busy doing a HALLWAY HUNT!!!!!!!!!!!!



Students combed the hallway for images and classified them as wants or needs.  Fun for them.  Instant assessment for me.  I so NEEDED this!

{We classified all healthy foods as needs}

{Need. Duh. Speaking of needs, I definitely needed to refill my ink before printing these cards out.  The original image is actually a healthy green tree, not a dying yellowish-green one}

{One of my students told me a ring was a NEED as in “you NEED it to get married”.  Who was I to argue?}

{Packed up in the binder and ready to go for next year!}

So fun and so easy!  Now you see why I LOVE teaching Wants and Needs!  All of these activities come from my Wants and Needs Mini-Unit.  It’s been a staple of my little shop for awhile, but it recently got a make-over to include the Hallway Hunt.  {It also has 2 printables, one for wants and one for needs}.

{Click the picture to check out the unit on TpT}

I’d love to give a copy or two of this unit away!  If this looks like something you could use in your classroom leave a comment below.  Give me your #1 need and your #1 want!  Don’t forget your email. I can’t wait to read your answers!  I’ll pick a winner by tomorrow night!

Now I ‘m off to dinner… I NEED some sushi ;)

~Halle