Fine Arts
- Start a club at your school for dance, music, theatre, or the visual arts. Use your leadership skills to determine a constitution and by-laws for your arts organization. Plan an organizational meeting and activities for this arts club. Determine a budget for your club and strategies to make it financially sound.
Social Studies/Math
- What is the role of a bank in the community? What happens when a community does not have access to a bank?
- Where do banks get their money?-The current economic downturn has been called a “credit crisis.” What does that mean?
- Find out about the history of the Urban League. What Supreme Court case inspired the founding of the Urban League. What is the purpose of the Urban League? Look up the Web page of the Columbia Urban League. What kinds of activities is it engaged in?
Activities for 4 and 5 Kindergarten and First Grade
During community circle read the calendar page and talk about Mr. Bennett and what it means to be a banker. Ask have they been to a bank? Do they have a bank? Why do we need to have banks? Should we develop our own class bank? What would we do with a bank if we had one? All of these questions would be recorded on chart paper.
Library center: Read books such as "Bargain for France" by Russell Hoban and "Carl Goes Shopping" by Alexander Day.
Math Center and block center: Set up a bank, have the children describe the materials, equipment and people that are needed to have working in a Bank. In small groups have them talk about what each person would do (the bank teller, bank manager, etc.) and the function of the equipment (The bank vault, teller machine, ATM, etc.). The children will need to examine money and coins. This can be related to be math standards on money values.
Art Center: Children can develop the classroom currency. They will have discussed the value of each piece of the currency.
Product development: Come up with a product that the students can make and sell in the classroom business. Who would buy this product? How much should it cost? What are other similar products priced at? Why is this product better?
Home living Center: This is where the classroom business will be set up to sell what the product that they have decided to make. Assign jobs - manager, sales people, inventory people. Create ads to market the product.
