Teaching Economy in 4th or 5th grade

I am not a licensed elementary teacher. Subbing this year has shown me so much about the workings of the lower grades. I have tried to piece together how teachers work with state and national standards, and it's a bit confusing. One aspect is teaching financial and economic literacy. In several classes I have been in, part of the reward/consequence system involves "payment" and "fines."

Here are the methods I have seen in action:
Method Ja
background: This is a fifth grade class with GLAD influence.

• students have jobs they get paid for. Some jobs are paid better than others (teaches that resources are allocated differently)
• Students make wallets where they keep their money.
• Students are fined for misbehavior and not turning in homework. They must take home their fine and get it signed and then pay the teacher out of their wallets. 
• Students may buy privileges from the BANKER (one of the classroom jobs) 
• examples include comfy toes, teacher chair, teacher desk, seat bump, computer time, etc.
• loans can be given and interest is collected. 

Method Je

background: This is a fourth grade class with GLAD influence. 

• students start with 5 fuzzies. They can be taken away for misbehavior.
• Fuzzies can be turned in for raffle tickets.
• raffle tickets buy objects students may need (pencils, spiral notebooks, emergency bathroom passes, etc.) or want (sharing time, extra recess, homework pass, lunch with teacher, etc.) (teaches the difference between need and want at a financial level.)
• students are responsible for their own tickets, BUT teacher has set up baggies in each cubby to hold tickets and fuzzies. 

At some point during the school year, students should be prompted to write about their experience with the fuzzies or job scenarios. This would likely be done without the students even knowing it was an assessment for economy standards. 

GLAD

I have spent time at one school lately where the GLAD program is used consistently. There are some portions of the GLAD program that I don't really jive with, (particularly the hand motions and potential for singing... blech) but there are other parts that I find really interesting and organized.

Now, I know next to nothing about the program except for what snippets I have seen, but here are my first impressions:

• Organized in the way my brain thinks
• Good for building note-taking skills
• Good for team-building
• Good for motivating
• GREAT opportunities for inquiry-based learning
• students seem to enjoy it and get hands on experience

I realy could go on and on. I like it that much. 

QUESTIONS:

1. Where do you find the resources for the lessons?

2. How difficult would it be to construct your own units based on the GLAD philosophy?

Reading Groups

Spending time in elementary classes has given me a much needed education on elementary curriculum. One of the most interesting things I have observed from the teacher side is the reading groups. Every 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade class I have been in has some sort of reading groups where a group of kids meets to read with the teacher each day. While the students are not with the teacher, they are working on other tasks like reading packets, silent reading or vocabulary.
If I was to teach one of these grades, I want to write out my ideas on the subject. If you are a teacher and have other unique reading group ideas, please share!
- Read chapter books together??
- Read scientific articles together
- Group students by interest, science vs. animals vs. space, etc. to help students read what they like.
- Individualize non-group times.

#Sublife

So I've been consistently subbing for 4 weeks now. I've really enjoyed almost every minute of it. Over the next few days/weeks I will be posting my observations of different schools and different ideas I've picked up from various classrooms. To kick off, I want to talk for a second about the life of a sub.

Subbing at the high school level is incredibly boring. Teachers (myself included when I ran my own high school classroom) leave a worksheet for students to complete independently or a movie they can watch. High schoolers also have this thing where they want to show their independence whenever they can.... having a sub in their class is ripe with opportunities for high-schoolers to show they don't need someone to tell them what to do.

Thank God for the elementary classroom. You walk into the room and most students have instant respect for you simply because I'm over a foot taller than most of them and therefore an adult (#kidlogic). Not only is there a level of respect from the students, but the teachers as well. Teachers at the elementary level leave actual lesson plans for subs. Granted, they may be watered down, but you actually get to do some teaching! My mom and I were talking and she made a good point. She mentioned that fifth-graders do a LOT of learning. Teachers reach them because they are still in elementary school but they are also starting to build the foundation for the rest of their education career... including college. Something to think about.

And then there is middle school. I haven't spent a ton of time in middle school classrooms, but so far I have really enjoyed the awkwardness that is middle school. They still respect adults, they are learning some cool things, and the work is close-ish to high school level.

I've worked in four different districts and two different counties and so thankful for this opportunity to test drive each grade.