Economics Activities for 6th Graders
Teaching economics in the sixth grade is different from teaching economics in high school. Like other subjects in elementary school, you need to simplify economics for the educational level of your students. Basically, you cannot give them too many equations and theoretical material and instead need to focus on the application of economics in everyday life.
Other People Are Reading
-
Introduction to Economics
-
Provide your students with simple definitions of economics and money. Essentially, economics is a discipline that studies how firms, households and countries decide what to produce and consume. Money is the means by which people exchange goods and services. When employees receive wages, they get the money for the services they provide to the employer. Also, teach your students practical skills, such as money math. Tell them that five pennies equal a nickel, two nickels equal one dime, two dimes and one nickel equal one quarter and four quarters equal one dollar. In addition, teach your students what American presidents appear on dollar bills: $1 is George Washington, $5 is Abraham Lincoln, $10 is Alexander Hamilton, $20 is Andrew Jackson, $50 is Ulysses S. Grant and $100 is Benjamin Franklin. Also, inform the sixth graders that in the U.K. people use pounds sterling, Japanese use the yen and Chinese use the yuan, while in Europe the euro is the dominant currency.
Market
-
Tell the students about the market. Start with an example of a farmers' market. You can also role play the farmers' market, some children playing farmers and other buyers. First, make a situation when there are more farmers then buyers and then make the reverse happen. When there are too many farmers selling too much produce, such as apples, the supply is high. Accordingly, farmers try to compete by lowering prices. If, on the other hand, there are too many buyers in the market, the demand is high, and farmers can raise prices as they know that people will still buy from them. After the children understand how the farmers' market functions, tell them that any market economy works the same way. And, generally, the more there is competition between suppliers, the lower the prices will be. Quality also improves as produces try to compete by producing higher-quality goods and services.
-
Consume or Save
-
Ask the children what they will do with $10. They will probably tell you what they will buy with it. Then tell them they have $10 million. The chances are that the kids will not be able to come up with an idea of how to spend that much and will inevitably offer ways to save the money by investing it in stores of value, such as houses or a bank deposit. Now introduce them to the dilemma of whether to spend or save. Spending makes you happy while saving money allows you to spend more in the future. Also, the larger income you have, the bigger share of it goes to investment and less to consumption.
Needs and Wants
-
Tell students to come up with a list of things they need. Then ask them to list things they want. Now try to find out whether they can tell the difference. The needs are things that people require while wants are things that people would like to have but can do without. Needs and wants are popular concepts used in economics.
-
References
- Photo Credit Pennies on the Dollar - one dollar bill with pennies. image by Andy Dean from Fotolia.com
