Lesson Plans

Approximately once a week students will go to the library. Half of the students will use
the computers to work on their Banzai.com account. The other half will use the Google
Chromebooks to start their Economic Dictionary Livebooklet at Livebooklet.com. They
will switch halfway through class. If students finish their dictionaries early they can start
banzai.
Lesson 1: Introduction to Economics (1 class period)
Warm-up: KWL-Economics
Watch What is Economics
Class Discussion: How do you use economics?
Computer Lab: Introduce www.teachbanzai.com to all students. Have them create an
account and begin the life scenarios.
Lesson 2: Money (1 class period)
Warm-up: Why is money important?
Watch What is Money
Read History of Money as a class
Complete History of Money Assessment
Lesson 3: Types of Economics (2 class periods)
Day One
Warm-up: Describe a situation where you could barter for goods.
Watch Micro vs. Macro
Read Economics as a class
Complete Economics Assessment
Day Two
Warm-up: Make a list goods that people can buy. Where can you buy these? Make a list
of services people can buy. Where can you buy these? Are there businesses that sell
both goods and services?

Whole class: participate in Micro vs. Macro Smart Board activity. Students will place the
description of an activity in either the micro or macro economics category.
Students will create a cut and paste T-chart of micro vs. macro economics.
Vocab List Lessons 1-3 (for livebooklet)
Legal tender: the official money of a government
Economics: the study of how things are bought or sold
Goods: any item that can be bought or sold
Services: any action one person or group does for another in exchange for money
Resource: anything used to produce goods and services
Scarcity: means we can never have all we want of every good or service
Microeconomics: the study of decisions made by people and businesses that affect
individuals in an economy
Macroeconomics: the study of decisions that affect the economy of a nation
Lesson 4: Supply and Demand (4 class periods)
Day One
Warm-up: Name certain products that are hot commodities such as silly bands. Why
are these so wanted?
Watch: Supply and Demand in Frozen
Read: Supply and Demand as a class
Complete Supply and Demand Assessment
Day Two
Warm-up: Describe the law of supply and demand
Class Auction: (On previous days tickets will be handed out for completing warm-ups,
behaving, arriving to class on time, being polite, etc.) Students will have the opportunity
to participate in an auction to understand supply and demand. Students will first be able
to inspect the different items up for bid, then a class auction will take place. To
demonstrate scarcity the most desirable items will be in limited supply. Large quantities
of less desirable items will be available.
1. Hold up the item up for bid
2. Students raise hands to bid
3. Highest bidder wins
4. Students trade in tickets for item
Class Discussion: (after the auction) discuss the effects of supply and demand. How
did it affect the price of the different items? Were students more likely to bid on items
that were plentiful or scarce?

Day Three
Warm-up: How does supply of an item affect its demand?
Read Advertising Techniques
Give students an everyday item. (Option 2: students could create their own products)
They must increase the demand for their product. They must create an advertisement
for their product. This can be either a print add or a 30 second commercial, or both.
Day Four
Warm-up: If the demand is too low for a product, what happens to the supply? What if
the demand is very high?
Finish advertisements
Last 10-15 minutes of class students will watch all advertisements and rank them of
which item they want the most to the least. Option 2: have another class watch the
advertisements and have them rank the items from most wanted to least wanted.
Lesson 4 Vocab (for livebooklet)
Consumers: people who buy goods and services
Producers: people and businesses who supply goods and services
Supply: the number of items available for sale
Demand: the number of items consumers want to buy
Surplus: a greater supply than demand
Scarcity: a greater demand than supply (add to current definition)
Lesson 5: Opportunity Cost (4 class periods)
Day One
Warm-up: If you choose to stay home instead of going to school, what are the things
you are missing out on? What are the trade offs for staying home?
Watch: Tradeoffs and Opportunity Costs
Read: Opportunity Cost and Trade-offs aloud as a a class
Complete Opportunity Cost and Trade-offs Assessment
If I Ran the Zoo Econedlink Lesson Plan
http://www.econedlink.org/teacher-lesson/209/If-I-Ran-Zoo-Economics-Literture
Day Two
Warm-up: Describe how price, supply, demand, and choice might affect a person
purchasing a pet.

Read Dr. Seusss If I Ran the Zoo aloud to the class

Complete chart on how the book relates to the following economic terms: scarcity,
demand, supply, opportunity cost, choice, price, shortage, surplus
Day Three
Warm-up: Describe opportunity cost
Students will choose 3 animals to add to the zoo. Discuss the 5 guidelines to adding
animals to a zoo. Students will use the virtual zoo link to make their final decisions.
They must then write a paragraph per animal as to why that animal should be added to
the zoo.
Day Four
Warm-up: Editing warm-up
Students will take their three paragraphs from the day before and add an introduction
paragraph and a conclusion paragraph to create a 5 paragraph essay. Paragraphs will
be edited and re-copied or typed.
Lesson 5: Specialization (2 class periods)
Day One
Warm-up: Describe how you would make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on a
deserted island. (Once students give answers talk about where they got the PB and
Jelly from- talk about growing the fruits and grains and peanuts.)
Watch: Specialization and Trade (Stop the video to discuss what is being said,
especially at the graph section)
Read and follow along with Specialization activity and questions in the interactive at
http://www.econedlink.org/teacher-lesson/350/Lemonade-Cookies
Day Two
Use Lesson Idea from:
http://dnet01.ode.state.oh.us/ims.itemdetails/lessondetail.aspx?id=0907f84c80531356
Warm-up: Why would you buy a handmade item when it costs so much more? Is it
worth it?
Today the class will be making greeting cards. Divide students into two groups. One
group is the individualized or by hand group. The other group is the specialized group.
Each goup member in the specialized group will get a specific job (grabbing a sheet of
paper, folding the paper, cutting the paper, stamping the paper-outside and inside, 5
members per team). Each individualized group will have to do all of the steps on their
own. Have students get started, allow to work for 5-7 minutes.

Have a class discussion: How did specialization help the production process? How does
this relate to trade? What should countries and businesses do to maximize their money
and profits? Getting the paper was like taking a resource, should you make something if
you do not have access to its major resource? Would Ohio be a good place to make
seashell wall hangings?
Lessons 4 and 5 vocab
Trade Offs: giving up something of value to get something you want
Opportunity Cost: what is given up when an alternative is chosen
Division of Labor: An arrangement in which workers perform only one step or a few
steps in a larger production process (as when working on an assembly line)
Specialization: A situation in which people produce a narrower range of goods and
services than they consume. Specialization increases productivity; it also requires trade
and increases interdependence.

Dictionary Presentations (1 class period)

Students will present their dictionaries to the class