Create-A-City: Make Economics *FUN* for Kids (FREEBIES INCLUDED!)

     Create-A-City is TRULY one of my most favorite simulations to teach economics, civics, government, money, public-speaking, and more! Our economics unit centers around and is adapted for 2nd/3rd/4th grades from the Interact simulations Kid Town and Classroom City. It is a treasured tradition in my classroom. The students learn topics including goods and services, pros/cons to salary pay vs entrepreneurship, and civics. In our City Council Meetings (class discussions), students learn the topics and apply those topics in the simulation. In one of the City Council Meetings, the citizens individually decide whether they want to apply for a salary position or create their own business. Each year, the class names their city. Over the years, names have included Cometville (after our school mascot) as well as Wildcat Woods and Funville. We invite parents to come in and interview students applying for either business loans or salary positions. At the end of the unit, we invite parents and first grade to come shop in our city (tourist season). 

To engage our parents in the process, we invite them to come in to interview salary workers and entrepreneurs. It is absolutely precious!  We have about 6-8 parents come in dressed professionally and playing the role of a bank loan officer or Human Resources representative. The students bring either their business application information or their resumé. 

Below are pictures of a business being interviewed by a parent:

The kids were also encouraged to "look professional" because they would be interviewed for their business loans and salary positions. Needless to say, the kids always take this VERY seriously.  So precious!

We invited the 3rd graders (and former Wildcat City! citizens) to share their reflections with the 2nd graders with similar businesses. The new business owners had a series of interview questions to help prompt their advisor. It was absolutely precious and a great way to connect the grades. On the day of the simulation, we also invite the 1st grade students to shop. This is a great way to connect their year-to-come experience!

Below are a few pictures of our businesses and
salary workers on our presentation day:

The bankers, along with the bank manager (teacher), handled all the loan transactions, payroll, ATM-manning, and general banking for the citizens of our city. The ATM was created using a tri-fold board, dowel rods with applesauce caps hot-glued on for buttons, and some lettering. "Tourists" received city-specific money as well as ATM cards to use during their time in our city. They used scrapbook paper plastic containers to hold the denominations of money. 

This business owner created a movie! 

He popped popcorn to sell along with tickets to his showings.

One of our students was the police officer for our city! A few officers from our local police department came over and were interviewed by the student about their reasons for being an officer as well as other important parts of their job. They were wonderful with our student! They even gave him sticker-badges to give to the other students in his class as well as enough to hand out on the "tourist season" day.

These two lovely business owners created a business that sold collars, leashes, dog beds, treats, and other dog needs. Their business also provided dog training (for stuffed lovies)!

This young citizen created a business around his martial arts training. 

He offered lessons that cost $5 for five minutes.

These creative ladies designed tissue-paper flowers, clay flowers, and flower jewelry!

For the simulation, our businesses and salary jobs have included:

• Salary workers: bankers (2), fire marshal, doctor, police officers, librarians, teachers

• Businesses: origami designs, bakeries, gaming arcades, dance lessons, art shop, city museum, yoga studio, martial arts, Harry Potter experiences, tie-dye clothes, movie theater (student-made production), puppet shows, scientists selling tickets to see experiments, jewelry shop, pet supplies

Above are some examples of what we give the kids when they apply for
jobs or businesses, a business license, and interview questions
we give the parents.

Click HERE for one of the City Council Meeting lessons FREEBIE!

Click HERE to see Salary Worker Interview Questions FREEBIE!

Click HERE for the Business Loan Application FREEBIE!

Please feel free to email me or comment below with additional questions about this simulation!

1

Seesaw: My Classroom Game Changer!

     Parent/Classroom communication had been somewhat of a struggle in our classroom over the years...  We sent weekly (paper) newsletters and posted them on our school's internal website, sent emails, sent work home often, you name it.  Still there were families who felt they needed more.  Then last year, my soon-to-be co-teacher was shown something by our head of school.  SEESAW!  She showed it to me and I knew right away this would be the total game changer for our classroom.  My then co-teacher and I implemented it immediately!  The response was POSITIVELY overwhelming!  We started out with the free Seesaw, but quickly purchased Seesaw for Schools for Grades 2-5.  Our Middle School and "Specials" (PE, Music, World Languages, Art, Drama) classes now use it and we're working on getting K-1 on board too.  Our school happens to be 1:1 iPads, but Seesaw is meant for schools with all types of technology access!

     Seesaw is a student-driven digital portfolio that allows the students to directly communicate/document their learning to their families and teachers in an absolutely safe space.   Parents now get to see what their child is doing in real-time presented by their child!  Even grandparents and other family members can sign up if they have the child's code!  It has been so sweet to see the grandparents living out of state commenting on their grandchild's work :)

Click HERE to see an example of one of my student's math work!  

This was a math lesson about metric and nonstandard measurement.

Click HERE to see an example of one of my student's reflections 

about her Passion Project progress.

Click HERE to see an example of a video created by two of my students
to explain equivalent fractions. 

Click HERE to see a video one of my students made about multiplication.

     Teacher benefits?...  A TON!!  We were able to lose the weekly newsletters that were consuming A LOT of our time on Fridays (sometimes weekends if we didn't get to it on Friday)!  We are able to assess them in more authentic ways in addition to standards-based.  We are able to give meaningful feedback on their work.  We could easily use a safe Seesaw blog connected to our class, but I haven't done that yet.  We can comment on other teacher's classes if we are co-teachers on their accounts.  With Seesaw for Schools, our head of school and all admin with access can see what the kids are doing without leaving their office and can comment on the kids work!  We can see which parents view the work.  The kids can constructively comment on each other's work (if you turn that feature on).  These are just a few of the amazing things that Seesaw has helped us improve in our class!  This blog post does not do full justice to all the incredible features Seesaw has to offer!!

Scan this code to get a free month of Seesaw Plus!

Click HERE for more information about features and pricing!

0

MobyMax Transformed My Assessments and SO MUCH MORE!

     How do I love thee, Pinterest?  Let me count the ways!  While looking on Pinterest for Thanksgiving activities for my third graders, I came across MobyMax in the list.  It had pretty much nothing to do with Thanksgiving activities, but was *EXACTLY* what I needed to fill another role (or twenty)!

     Our school administers assessments (reading and math) at the beginning of each year to gauge a student's ability.  Our Math assessment is our own teacher-made, and I've felt it wasn't the best indicator we could use.  Perhaps the length (we test every standard per grade level)?  Perhaps that it's subjective anyway. Don't get me started on our Reading assessment...  Our school currently differentiates in several ways, one being to move high-achieving students to the next grade level for math class.  Because I was at the starting grade level of moving students up (2nd grade), I usually lost half my class to them moving on in math class.  A few years ago we stemmed the tide and began to differentiate in more meaningful ways.  However, I was still running into students moving on regardless of their achievement on the teacher-made test.  Frustration grew every year to say the very least...

     Until last October when I found (2016 EdTech Digest award-winning) MobyMax!  This curriculum/program is incredibly easy to use, and most importantly (for me) offers true standards-based assessments in Reading and Math!  I set up my class immediately and had the kids take the tests regardless of the math class they currently attended.  I was overwhelmed with the information (in a FANTASTIC way)!!  The test is adaptive when they are completing the assessment.  The results show the standards missing and gives a grade level equivalent.  It was pretty on-target for what I expected.  There are a few times teachers in my school felt it didn't truly reflect the student's ability so the tests were re-administered to those few students.  In addition, our school is 1:1 iPads so this would be an easy go-to as well.  However, if you are not 1:1, don't let that sway your decision!  You could easily use Moby as a station, though the kids would need to sign in.

     My students use Moby all the time, mostly as something constructive to do when they are finished with the class lesson/objective.  There are a TON of subjects for the students to work with!  *The best part is -- Moby fills in the holes in their understanding and skips the skills they are proficient with.*  For example, I had a student who tested at 4.3 grade level in math.  However, the test showed he was missing 1st - 3rd grade skills even though he was mostly at a 4.3 grade level!  This was something incredibly important that I could show his parents at conferences, and was also objective proof that he was in the correct math class.  Though I teach 3rd grade, our school generally teaches up a grade level.

     I can't say enough *AMAZING* things about MobyMax and how it has transformed extra time in my class as well as direct instruction!  Though there is a free version, we purchased the school version so that the progress looped with the kids among many other reasons.  The school version allowed us to have access to all *extras* that were really helpful and engaging for the kids.  The *extras* include sending direct messages (good & bad vibes and messages) through it to students, to seeing their progress in real-time, to printing their certificates as they achieve curriculum standards -- Moby has it all!  Lots of contests, both teacher-made and through Moby's Facebook!

     Please please do yourself a favor and take a look!  Their website is incredibly detailed and the customer service is outstanding!  Teachers, we have it in us to want to be everything to every student and sometimes that just isn't possible.  Moby helps alleviate some of that and constructively fills in the gaps so that students can truly gain a firm understanding of necessary skills!

     I could go on and on...!  If you'd like me to share more of my experience with it, feel free to email me or comment below!

0