November 3, 2014
By Dean Kloss
Going into this school year, I decided I wanted to apply the C3 Framework’s Inquiry strategies to my classroom. Along with going over the rules, taking part in a video conference with a class from Kansas, and Open House, my class of first-graders have started an inquiry unit that I created.
When I was in Binghamton for a C3 conference this summer, I began to think about how to start the school year with my First Graders using this model. Their compelling question needed to be presented at a basic enough level so they could engage with it, but also relevant enough to include important grade-level content.
No matter what grade I have taught, I have thought that economics is a portion of Social Studies, which does not get the attention that its crucial nature deserves. Maybe we get caught up in the complexities of some of the terms. It just seems as if too many students’ knowledge of economics is limited.
And, yet, if there’s anything that all of us, even the youngest students, understands it’s some basic economic realities: wanting and needing things, buying and selling, not having enough money for what you’d like to get, limited supply, overwhelming demand. Teaching economics—at least on a basic level— should be the easiest thing we do, not the most challenging.
So I looked over the New York State Social Studies standards for my grade level, focusing on those having to do with economics. I constructed a unit around the compelling question: “Where do we get what we need?”
To promote our investigation, I asked my class supporting questions to help distinguish what people needed to live (as opposed to animals). Secondly we talked about what we need versus what we might want. Last week, we started to identify where in our community we could begin to meet these needs.
First Graders love to talk about three things: animals, food, and the weather. So we had a lesson and a discussion on the supporting question: “Where can we get the food that we need to live?” The talk was good and focused for the third week of First Grade. I was encouraged by the children’s responses. But if you’ve spent much time around a six-year old you know that they can come to inaccurate, yet rational, conclusions.
It took them a while to get down the difference between a want and a need. I think I finally have them convinced that candy is not a need (although with Halloween coming up we may be taking a few steps back in that area. I tried to apply the wants/need dichotomy with them when we discussed Columbus and what he would need for his voyage to the New World.
Next I want to widen our circle of discussion a bit to the community and what each town has to have to be able to grow, what things that everyone in the town will need at some point.
We’re getting there with this loud, smart class of mine…
