Lesson 7: Work and Money

For the page "Limited Resources," your child will be given a limited amount of money and will have to decide how to spend it. As your child makes her decisions, ask her to explain her reasoning. Your child can use the fake money from the previous lesson or from a monopoly game, or you can provide real money for the activity.

Some jobs are too big to perform alone. To finish these jobs, people must work together. In these situations, different people will do different parts of the job. Tell your child that today she is going to perform an experiment to determine whether it takes more or less time to work with another person to accomplish a job.

Read through the job descriptions on the page "Working Together" and ask your child to guess whether each job will take a longer or shorter amount of time to do with two people. Let her record her prediction on the data sheet.

Next, ask your child to do each job independently; use a stopwatch or clock with a second hand to see how long it takes her and then record her time on the data sheet.

Then ask her to do the same jobs but to find someone else (you, a friend, a sibling) to help her do part of the job. Again measure the time it takes to complete the task and then record the outcome on the data sheet.

When she has finished the experiment, she can circle the words in the conclusion that describe the experiment's results.

Encourage your child to read each scenario on the sheet called "Making a Choice." Then she can write about the choice she would make and why she would make it. In the first scenario, fill in the first blank with something your child might want.

Today, you will begin a spelling journal that your child will utilize throughout the year. Based on your child's fine motor skills and writing ability, you may choose either a spiral-bound notebook or a pad with large lines made for young children.

In this journal, she will record the correct spelling of words. As she encounters new writing experiences, encourage her to use her journal to help with the spelling of words and as an idea for new vocabulary to use in her writing. She can also record the vocabulary words for each unit.

In her journal, let her practice writing the following spelling words three times. Review the definition of each word. Also encourage her to use each word in a sentence and to say the sentence aloud. Call out each word and ask your child to practice spelling the word orally.