Helping Students Identify Needs and Wants

Hi, today I’m going to talk about an economics lesson I do with my kindergarten, pre-k students entitled, “Needs versus wants.” The first thing we do is talk about what I need is. A need is something you need to live, a want is something you’d like to have, but you don’t need it to survive. Then we go ahead, and we are going to create a graphic organizer, or a t-chart to organize our ideas about our needs and our wants. So, I went ahead, and I created one here for you. This is a basic t-chart and it’s just organizing your ideas. So, our needs are on one side and our once on are on the other. And so, we just have a conversation, have the kids talk about things that they may have in their homes. What is the need and what is a want. So, if they have water that is definitely a need. You need water to survive. We’re going to put it on the side that says needs. If somebody says “Oh, I have a bike.” Well is the bike a need or is it a want? Do you need a bike to survive, or can you maybe walk? So, that might turn it into a want. And, what you’re listening for to is the discussions the students are having with each other because, they really will converse with each other about no, no, no that’s not a need because, you can walk, or you can get the train, or your mom can take you. So, we’re trying again to develop some oral language with the students. And so, after we make our needs versus wants t-chart, we’ll talk about some needs and wants for them to organize on their own paper. So, you can ask them for example for an assessment. You can say, “I want you to draw me a picture of two needs, and then I want you to draw me a picture of 2 wants. And then you can have them share those needs and wants with their classmates. And, that way you’ll get a good idea if they’ve mastered that concept of need versus wants. Thanks.