To market we will go

In a market simulation, students will experience the roles of producers and consumers. The crafts in this market may be easily tied in with winter multicultural holidays (Christmas, Kwaanza, Hanukkah, Hmong New Year, Las Posadas, etc.) Students can purchase gifts for their family members at the market.

A lesson plan for grades 2 and 4 English Language Development and Social Studies

By Ellen Douglas and Melissa Park

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Learning outcomes

Students will develop a basic understanding of the concepts of the roles of producers and consumers, goods and services, supply and demand.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

2 weeks

Materials/resources

• Chart paper with definitions of economic terms: producer, consumer, goods, services
• Materials for making crafts
• Nickels in play money
• Poster board for signs
• Loan papers
• Zip-lock bags to hold money while shopping
• Visuals for LEP students (see Modifications)
• Plastic shopping bags
• Mock Lay-Out of Booths

Pre-activities

If using a multicultural winter holiday theme, you will need to teach holidays before beginning this unit. Try to include holidays from as many cultures in your school as possible. An example of a craft, a Hmong storycloth, is attached.

Activities

Day 1

1. Introduce market. Ask students if they have ever been to a supermarket or other types of markets. Make a double bubble or Venn diagram showing the similarities and differences between markets and supermarkets. Record students’ remarks on chart paper using words and simple illustrations.
2. Show chart with economics terms. Read the definition of terms and add a simple illustration of term. Elicit additional examples from students and draw and label examples.
3. Before the lesson, create a list of business teams with students assigned heterogeneously (mixed according to gender, ability, and cultural background). Assign each team a service or product to create. Teams should consist of 2–4 students. Identifies teams and explain that each team is now a business. They will be creating products for other consumers to purchase at the international market. Show each team an example of their product.
4. Introduce materials that students will need to make each product. Tell students that they will need to buy these materials for $3.00. Ask students if they have the money to buy the materials. If they do not, ask what they could do about that. Lead students to the understanding that they will have to borrow some money to pay for the materials. Introduce the loan paper (see Loan attachment). Read it aloud to make sure students understand what they are agreeing to. Each member of the business team signs the loan agreement. Teams receive their materials.
5. Explain that they will also be earning a daily wage if they perform their jobs well (You could also pay by production, but it works best if each child ends up with $1.00 total in wages). Tell students that they will be using the money they earn to purchase items in the market.

Days 2 through 6

1. Work on crafts or services. Put directions for each craft on a sign using words and pictures. While the students are working on the crafts, remind students to:
   • produce enough goods to be able to repay loan.
   • maintain high quality of product.
2. Students receive a daily wage based on how well they worked. You can tell them how much they earned each day and let them keep a running tally, or you can give them the money each day to keep in a bag.

Day 7

1. Business teams set prices for their goods or services. Show a mock layout of market booths drawn on chart paper with a picture and label of each product on the booth (see booth attachment for model—you can draw a larger version of this on chart paper). Place paper on floor with students around it in a circle. Give one student a bag of twenty nickels (use nickels for ease in counting). Student selects a craft to buy. Teacher says, “That one costs eighty cents. Put eighty cents on that booth.” Student selects another booth. Teacher says, “That one costs forty cents. Put forty cents on that booth.” Students see that he doesn’t have enough money to pay for the item. Teacher then asks what will happen if they set their prices too high (consumers won’t be able to buy many items, or they may decide not to buy the product).
2. Then talk about what will happen if they set prices too low. Give an example: You charge five cents for a bracelet, and your team has made twenty bracelets. How much will you make on the twenty bracelets? (Students can count out the twenty nickels and see that they would make $1.00). Ask what the problem with this is and lead them to see that they will not have enough to repay their loan.
3. Teams then decide how to set the price on their products. The price needs to be in a multiple of five. You may want to establish a range of prices for the students to choose from (for example, ten to twenty-five cents). You may want to write the multiples of five on the board for students to refer to.

Day 8

Prepare for market:

1. Business teams design a poster for their market booth. Signs should give the name of the product and its price, and it could also illustrate the product.
2. Team members choose roles to perform at the market, either cashier or customer assistant. Cashier is responsible for taking the money and making sure the amount is correct. Customer assistant recruits business, helps the customer select the product, and directs the customer to the cashier. Give team members tags with roles on them to assign to the people they have selected to perform those roles.
3. Practice with the money because all students will be both buying and selling at the market. Give students bags of nickels. Give an example: “You see a bracelet for twenty-five cents. Put out the right number of nickels to pay for the bracelet.” Circulate and check coins. Assist students in counting orally by fives if they are having difficulty.

Day 9

1. Students set up booths by putting two to four desks together. They display their products and put their sign up. They use a bowl or bag to put the money in.
2. If you are working with another teacher on this project, classes take turns visiting each other’s markets. If you are working alone, divide your business teams into two groups so that one group shops while the other group sells their products.
3. Students who are buying go around to booths as they wish to buy items. They have a shopping bag to put their purchases in.

Debrief

1. If you are working with another class, ask the debriefing questions in two sessions, one after the students have had the opportunity to buy, and the other after they have had the opportunity to sell. If you are working alone, you may want to divide the debriefing into two sessions after the market experience.
2. Debriefing questions about purchasing items:
   • Did you buy items from each booth?
   • Did you buy two or more of any items? If so, why?
   • How did you decide what you were going to buy? Were you buying for yourself or for others?
   • Did you have enough money to buy what you wanted?
3. Debriefing questions about selling items:
   • What was your favorite part? What did you like least?
   • How many products did you sell? Teams figure out how many they sold by subtracting the number of products they have left from the number they had originally.
4. Make a class graph showing the most popular items. Ask, “Why do you think these items were the most popular?”
5. Each team groups their nickels in groups of twenty to make one dollar. Teams count up how much they made by selling their products.
6. Bring out loan papers and remind students they need to repay their loans. Collect the money from each team. Ask teams how much they have left. Explain that this is their profit, or how much the team made.
7. Ask, “If we did this again, what would you do the same or differently, based on today’s experience?” and “How was this experience like where your parents work or shop?”

Assessment

As students are working on producing the goods and services, poll individual students to assess. Ask students to define or give an example of goods, services, producers, and consumers. You may mark student’s performance on an optional checklist (see Checklist attachment.) Later, work with students who do not understand in small groups and re-assess.

Supplemental information

If there are a lot of products left, talk with students about what to do with them. Lead them to understand that having a clearance sale would be a good idea, since the class could still make money on the items.

Modifications

These modifications refer to the specific steps and days in the Activities box below.

Day 1

1. Show pictures of markets from different parts of the world, such as those found at Google Images. What kinds of items are for sale? Ask students if they have been to markets like this in their families’ countries—or in the US.

3. If possible, put novice learners onto teams with a same-language buddy who is more proficient in English, or if none is available, be sure they are with a student you know will be helpful.

As you tell students what team they are on, have them sit together as teams. Show each product and tray of materials to the team to make it clear that this is what that team will be making.

4. To demonstrate the idea of a loan, have the sequence of events for the market simply illustrated on several cards:

1. get materials
2. make product
3. hold the market
4. count up money
5. repay loan

Teacher will act out the sequence of events while pointing to the cards (see sequence attachment).

5. Wages: To demonstrate the idea of receiving wages, draw someone working and then receiving payment. Indicate with pantomime that students will also receive payment for their work (see wage attachment).

Day 7

Use sticky notes to put sample prices on each booth. Seeing the prices in writing helps the students understand what you are talking about. Use sticky notes so that you can easily remove or change the prices as you discuss setting a price.

Day 8

Use simple drawings and pantomime to illustrate the cashier and customer service roles (see roles attachment).

Debriefing on buying items: Use the mock layout of the market from Day 7 to let students indicate which areas they purchased from and how many items they purchased. To find out if they bought items for themselves or for others, have a picture that represents a student and another picture that represents a student giving a gift to someone else. Pantomime giving the present to yourself or to someone else. (see gift attachment)

When drawing the graph, draw a picture of each item to go with the written label.

Alternative assessments

When assessing if students have learned the economics terms, use the mock layout of the market booths from Day 7. Ask students to indicate a good or a service. To indicate the producer and consumer, the teacher should have several pictures available, showing people making products and people in a store buying products. Teacher shows a producer and a consumer picture and asks students to indicate which picture shows a producer. Students may point to the appropriate answer.

When assessing the speaking and listening goals, observe students during their interactions while creating products, shopping in the marketplace, and participating in class discussions. Use the optional checklist.

Critical vocabulary

• market
• business
• producer
• consumer
• goods
• services
• wage
• loan
• profit

Comments

This lesson plan was developed during the English Language Development Standard Course of Study lesson planning institutes hosted by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and LEARN NC, June and July, 2004. It includes specific strategies, instructional modifications, and alternative assessments which make this lesson accessible to limited English proficient students. Please note that this lesson has been aligned with the goals and objectives of the N.C. English Language Development standards.