Spedwards

Introduction: Your class has received a letter from the Chamber of Commerce saying they have heard about your "learning community". They want to offer you the keys to your city but there are some requirements.

Task: Create a working community complete with name, government, businesses, newspaper and laws. Learn about the being producers and consumers. Present what you have learned at the grand opening day of your community.

Process:

1. Read the letter from the Executive Director of the Chamber of Commerce.
2. Discuss what makes a community.
3. Choose a community name by democratic vote.
4. Elect community officials. Typical leaders would be a mayor, deputy mayor and city council members. In order to follow the election process, you must:
   1. fill in an application to run for office
   2. develop a campaign poster and speech that promote your ideas for the town
   3. hold a fair election with secret ballots (picture ballots, if possible)
5. Learn about other jobs within the community. You can do that by holding a Job Fair where parents come to school and share information about their jobs.
6. Research jobs within communities using resources in the school library.
7. Visit the computer lab and import your picture into KidPix. Add details to make yourself into a community helper. Write at least two sentences about your helper. See sample
8. Brainstorm jobs and businesses that your community might have.
9. Apply to work at a specific job or business. Application (page 1, page 2)Some will be open daily and some will only open once in a while. Some businesses will provide services and others will provide goods. Businesses in Spedwards were:
   1. Grocery Store:open daily, parents provided snacks that were divided into small baggies by the workers and sold at set price.
   2. Bank: open daily for students to make change
   3. Post Office: open daily, sells stamps and envelopes for students to use when writing within the community
   4. Newsstand: open daily, sells Weekly Reader magazines that are required for homework, also sell the class newspaper produced by the class 4 times a year.
   5. Plant nursery: workers care for plants daily but it is only open for purchases on "Bazaar Day"
   6. Library: open daily, librarian checks out books to students
   7. Police Officers: work daily to maintain peace and calm in the community, empowered to give out tickets for speeding (running) and noise pollution
   8. Specialty stores: only open on the Bazaar Day, they sell special products like Valentines Day cards, picture frames, bookmarks, toys, Beany Babies, snowman cans, etc. (teachers received funding for materials required for these stores from an Impact II Grant) Plan for the bazaar. All students participate in a business.
10. Work on your money skills by learning about different types of currency. Earn, save and spend your income. Make change at the bank.
11. Work with the art teacher to produce a community in the hallway. Large murals depicting the town, complete with signs and details will be hung outside the rooms. Some will be 3-D. See sample.
12. Ask the music teacher to teach the class some songs about communities and their helpers.
13. Using Neighborhood MapMaking Machine by Tom Snyder, create a map of your own community(see sample). Make sure you can use the grid to locate items on your map, read the map key and can figure out north, south, east and west on your map.
14. The "City Planners" should use Neighborhood MapMaking Machine to create a map of your town. Print it out as a large scale map (6x6).
15. Use Community Construction Kit by Tom Snyder to create 3-D buildings for your community. Place them on a large cityscape to show your future city (see sample).
16. Get ready for your bazaar you will hold at the Grand Opening.
    1. decide on the product you might sell
    2. invest in teacher-provided materials (each student must spend a portion of their money on the products)
    3. build the product
    4. promote it by making a commercial, have your teacher videotape the commercial
    5. name and build a storefront, display the product
    6. decide on sale price, and plan a work schedule
    7. create business cards
    8. hold two production days when you create your goods that you plan to sell on bazaar day
    9. label your products with a sale price or make signs for your storefront
17. Hold a Grand Opening of your town. To prepare, make sure stores are set up and commercials are shared and everyone has a town t-shirt. Put out your business cards.
18. Invite someone to present the "key to your city" to the mayor. (in this case it was the Executive Director of the Chamber of Commerce. Invite other dignitaries (principal, assistant principal, etc.)
19. Mayor gives a speech and declares the town open for business.
20. Businesses open. Students take turns working their portion of the schedule and shopping. Make sure your guests are welcomed and ushered around the town.
21. After the bazaar is over, students clean up their businesses and add up the profits. Profits are divided evenly amongst the business owners.
22. Discuss which businesses were most successful and which experienced scarcity.
23. Fill out the business survey.
24. Cut out the economic terms provided by the teacher and write in your social studies journal about your experience with your business.
25. Final activity: go on a field trip to visit local businesses in the community. (Spedwards students visited a grocery store, bank, fire station and post office.)

Opportunities to share:

1. Invite guests to the Grand Opening of the city.
2. Working collaboratively with different businesses and cooperatively with owners of your business.
3. Create large cityscape murals for the school hall.
4. Create a class newspaper for family and friends detailing the community happenings.
5. Share the city on the school news show.
6. Exhibit pictures and descriptions of the community on the k-1 webpage.

Assessment: A business survey is conducted after the unit is completed. Anecdotal notes are used for daily assessment. Social studies journal entries provide opportunity for teachers to see what students are gaining from the experience. A student produced class newspaper reflected all that occurred during the unit and integrated reading and writing skills seamlessly. Student photographers took digital pictures all along the way in order to add to the class newspaper and webpage.

The teachers actually involved the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce in this unit. However, the letter could be from any Chamber of Commerce, real or fictional. We've included both the initial letter requesting the chamber's assistance and the letter that the teachers drafted for the chamber to send the students. The executive director made two minor edits and copied it onto letterhead before sending it to the school.

The town operated just like a regular town with workers earning pay checks, raises, demotions and also paying an assessment or community tax. (some of the samples are given here)

Plan for Bazaar: These teachers have four bazaar days a year. Students form businesses that produce products. They must decide on the product, invest in teacher-provided materials (each student must spend a portion of their money on the products), build the product, promote it by making a commercial, name and build a storefront, display the product, decide on sale price, and plan a work schedule. Two production days are planned and on the day of the bazaar, stores are set up, commercials are shared and students take turns working their portion of the schedule and shopping.

Economics Terms: Teachers use the following terms with great frequency throughout the unit. Students start to incorporate these term with fluency in their speaking and writing. As a consequence of participating in the unit, these students had authentic connections to these terms.

To see pictures from the unit, click on the community.
To see the unit design click here.

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Unit created by Roxanne Edwards and Nancy Spaulding
Page created by Brooks Widmaier
March 29, 2002