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

Community Fun

Hi Ya’ll!

I can say that now.  I just spent 4 beautiful days in magical Charleston.  

Obsessed wouldn’t begin to cover it.  I am southern at heart.  I just know it.

The Mr. and I at House of Brews in Mt. Pleasant.  If you’re in town & love craft beer, check it out!! 

As hard as it was to come back from Charleston, we’ve been having so much fun at school, that I didn’t drag my feet in the sand too much…

{I lie. I totally did.}

We’re learning about the 3 types of communities in our classroom.  I always really enjoy this unit, because we do so many fun things to learn about them. 

Time has been an issue all year, so in an effort to save some of it, I whipped up a little communities lesson that combined letter writing with the types of communities {although, there are soooo many activities you could neglect the letter portion all together if it doesn’t suit your fancy}

Here’s a look at what we’ve been up to…





My student teacher used the picture cards from the unit as a sort.  Our kiddos loved it…they love anything that seems like a game.  Skip counting SPARKLE?  Count them in!

After we reviewed communities by doing the sort, it was time to write some letters.



My student teacher handed out the small picture cards {these exact ones are NOT in my unit, but others are}.  She had a visual representation of all three communities.  Students had to use that picture to write a letter to someone about their assigned community.  They were allowed to use their graphic organizers {provided}.





Some of them pretended they lived in their assigned community, and wrote from that perspective.  Others wrote from a more informational angle.  We left it up to them.

Once they were done writing their letter, they used the {provided} checklist to make sure their letter had all its parts.

Then it was time to mail them.





As you can see, we didn’t go the route of addressing the envelope.  That’s a WHOLE OTHER lesson for another time.  {3rd Grade, maybe?}

We also stamped our letters, and sent them to our mailbox for delivery.



The letter portion of the unit was designed to be the culminating event, but we have a little extra time before moving on to the next unit, so this week we’ll be going on a magazine photo hunt for image representations of the different communities.  We’re just having too much fun!

If this looks like something that would be up your alley, click the picture to check it out!  And in case I forgot to mention, it's ON SALE till Wednesday :)



Have a good night {ya’ll}

-Halle

Wants and Needs Craftivity

My Wants and Needs Craftivity is now available on Tpt.  I gave it away as a flash freebie here, but you can now grab it on TpT!


Enjoy the last few hours of the Teacher Appreciation Sale!

Click the picture to purchase the activity

If you enjoy it, please leave some feedback!


Happy Shopping!


Halle