Our Families emphasizes the roles people play in the local economy and engages students with activities about needs, wants, jobs, tools and skills, and interdependence. There are five required, volunteer-led activities. 

  

The key learning objectives listed beside each activity state the skills and knowledge students will gain. 

Activity One: Our Families

 

Students better understand what a family is by studying a poster. They discover how people in a family are alike and different and how they work together to make where they live a good place. 

  

Key Learning Objectives

Students will be able to:

  

* identify what a family is.
* recognize how people live and work together in a family.  

Activity Two: Our Families' Needs and Wants 

 

Students become aware that all families must have food, clothing, and shelter to live. They begin to understand the difference between a need and a want. 

 

Key Learning Objectives

 

Students will be able to:

 

* explain the differences between a need and a want.

Activity Three: Our Families' Jobs

 

Students learn how jobs provide for family members’ needs and wants. They draw pictures of family members doing jobs.

 

Key Learning Objectives

 

Students will be able to:

 

* define a job as work that needs to be done.
* identify jobs people do.

Activity Four: Finding Our Families' Needs and Wants

 

Students use a floor map to discover where members of a family would go to obtain their needs and wants.

 

Key Learning Objectives

 

Students will be able to:

 

* interpret map symbols.
* place various kinds of symbols for businesses and services on a map.
* recognize how family members depend on various businesses to provide for their needs and wants.

Activity Five: Paying for Our Families' Needs and Wants

 

Students learn about the importance of working to pay for needs and wants. Through role-playing, they demonstrate working and paying for these needs
and wants.

 

Key Learning Objectives

 

Students will be able to:

 

* describe various jobs from which people earn money.
* recognize that families use money to satisfy their needs and wants.

Our Families enhances students’ learning of the following concepts and skills:

 

Concepts: Business, Choices, Consumers, Earning, Economic incentives, Economic institutions, Employment, Family, Human resources, Incentives, Income, Interdependence, Jobs, Money, Needs, Resources, Scarcity, Skills, Spending, Tools, Voluntary exchange, Wants, Work

 

Skills: Analyzing information, Decision-making, Differentiating, Drawing, Following directions, Interpreting symbols, Listening responsively, Making observations, Map reading, Matching, Recognizing symbols, Sequencing, Teamwork

 

Our Families is a series of five activities recommended for students in first grade. The average time for each activity is 30 minutes. Materials are packaged in a self-contained kit that includes detailed activity plans for the volunteer and materials for 30 students.