The activities in this lesson introduce students to the difference between needs versus wants. Students will also learn to scrutinize advertising to discover messages that may affect their decisions.

This guide outlines the lesson which introduces studentst to the concepts associated with comparison shopping and choosing the best option.

In this lesson, students learn the impact of individual and group decisions at a local level, the concept of supply and demand, and how prices and product availability play into the demand of objects.

Students apply knowledge and understanding gained from the lesson to complete activities about saving and investing.

This guide outlines the lesson which introduces students to the basics of how money grows through saving and investing. The lesson also introduces the concepts of financial risk and rates of return.

Students complete activities to demonstrate the need to be accountable for how they spend and save money.

This guide outlines the lesson which introduces students to the concept of being responsible for managing money through accurate-record keeping.

Students will learn about the role of money in the colonial economy by participating in a trading activity in which they observe the effects of too little money on trade within a colony.

In this lesson, students learn about consumers and producers and give examples from the book, The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza. Students become producers by making bookmarks. Students draw pictures on their bookmarks of something that happened at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of the story. They become consumers when they use their bookmarks to mark a page in a book they are reading.

This activity gives students an understanding of a communist regime and what it means to live within a communist society.

In this activity, students learn how to set money goals and learn the difference between short-term goals and long-term goals.

This article defines and explains the characteristics, examples, pros and cons of a market economy.

Students examine Martin Puryear's "Ladder for Booker T. Washington" and consider how the title of Puryear's sculpture is reflected in the meanings we can draw from it. They learn about Booker T. Washington's life and legacy, and through Puryear's ladder, students explore the African American experience from Booker T.'s perspective and apply their knowledge to other groups in U.S. History. They also gain understanding of how a ladder can be a metaphor for a person's and a group's progress toward goals.

In the first chapter you learned about geography, one of the important areas of social studies. You explored the geography of Michigan and its many special natural characteristics. What do people do with the natural characteristics of Michigan? They put them to use! They plant crops in the soil. They use wood from trees to build houses. What do they do with water??? Lots and lots of things! There is a special name for things in nature that people find useful: natural resources. In this section you will learn how natural resources are important in another area of social studies: economics.

In this lesson, students listen to a story written in rhyme about a bunny that has a lot of money in her piggy bank. Students distinguish between spending and saving and goods and services. They play a matching game to review the content of the story and to practice rhyming words.

In this lesson, students listen to the story and identify the scarcity problem the monsters had—not enough chairs for every monster to have one. Students wear a picture of a want they have drawn and play a version of musical chairs in which the chairs are labeled goods. Students learn that a good can satisfy a want. They also learn that, because of scarcity, not everyone's wants are satisfied.

In this lesson, students learn about human capital and why it is important to improve theirs. They first observe a skit about a boy who could not read and then listen to a story about a moose who could not read or count. They then learn how investing in human capital helps both the boy and the moose achieve their goals. After thinking about their own human capital, students identify human capital needed by various workers to do their jobs. Students survey adults about their skills and investment in human capital and how and why the adults invested in their human capital in the past year. On Day Two they analyze the results of their surveys. Students draw generalizations about the skills the adults have and how and why they improve their human capital. They compare their own knowledge and skills with those of the adults they interviewed. Finally, students answer the question, "Why do we need to go to school?"