Thunderville!

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Thunderville!
By JES

I did mini-society with my 4th graders last year, and Thunderville was the name of our society. I have my students again this year for 5th grade, and we are going to do it again this year. We started 4th grade teaching
a unit on economics -- scarcity, opportunity cost, resources (natural, human, capitol), bartering, money, etc. After that we worked on other mini-society components as they seemed to fit in throughout the year. For example when we were studying National and State symbols we designed and selected our Flag. We had to develop our currency and choose civil service employees. We did a market

survey in Math and graphed the results to help decide which products would sell at what price - supply and demand. We created a product and wrote advertisements in language arts when studying persuasive writing. We developed the idea of production, specialization, and education by doing an activity called "Cup Companies." We built up slowly to actual business sessions.

It was a wonderful experience, and we only had 3 business sessions before the end of our school year. On the last session we joined with 2 other classes in our school cafeteria for an "International Day of Trade" among 3 societies. We had decided that our 3 units of currency was at par after we had a special speaker just back from Australia, Europe, etc. who showed us some examples of money from foreign countries.

Now, I am looking forward to delving deeper into the economic concepts, decision making tecniques, and problem solving strategies. My students voted to keep the same name - Thunderville, the same flag, and the same currency for 5th grade which will be a huge time saver. I am anticipating a business session once every month. Students will create their products and/or prepare their services at home and bring them in the day of our business sessions.

Good luck in your work!
JES