Book Clubs

The Thinkers have book club groups.  During our PYP unit How We Organize Ourselves the Thinkers read books that connected to economics.  Every few days they met to discuss what they were assigned to read the days before.  They also had to summarize the section and record aconomic connections.  Once they completed all the sections of their book, they had to do a project on what they learned.  Some groups did skits, some did pictures. It was fun!

By Josh

Reconciling Market Day

After we had our Market day, we had to count all of our money to see if we had a healthy economy.  We all added up and counted how much money each business made once our business closed.  Then we took out our pink recording sheet and subtracted our expenses to see if our business was healthy.  Those who had a healthy economy got a plus.  The people who did not have a healthy economy either had too low of a profit or too high of expenses.  Overall, we learned how to properly run a business.

By Luca and Katie

Market Day

Market Day was a lot of fun.  Our PYP unit was How We Organize Ourselves, we called it Let's Trade.  During Let's Trade we were learning about economies.  Our summative assessment was Market Day!  All of the 4th grade classes made a product or service of their choice.

First we had to decide what we should provide as a product or service.  Second, we had to get approved.  Third, we filled out our business plan.  Fourth, we got to start making it.  When the big day came we turned our pencil box into a cash register and put our pencils in a bag.  When we got money, we wrote our name on three of the one dollar bills to see if the money would flow around like when we read the book The Go Around Dollar.

Finally, we got all of our products or services set up.  Then we got our recording sheet to keep track of how much we sold.  A couple minutes later, people from the other classes started coming in to buy things.  Some people were not having good business sales so they were lowering their prices.  Other people lowered their prices because of compitetion. 


We were the last class to shop on Market Day and some businesses had already sold out!  Market Day was a lot of fun!

By Katie and Elana

Bead Economy

We did a bead project to learn about the three main types of economies.  For this bead project, we had to put beads on a string in a special order to make a bracelet.  Each group had four people.  

For the traditional economy, one person made a bracelet at a time, and we all had to inspect and approve it to make sure they did it right.  We got paid for each correctly made bracelet.

For the command economy, we each had a special part.  One person cut the string to the special length.  The next person kept the beads organized.  The next person strung the beads on the string.  The last person tied the knot so the beads didn't fall off.  

For the market economy, our group got to decide what to make, and how to make it.  We got paid for each item we made correctly.  At the end, Ms. Diem came and counted how many items each team made.

It was a fun way to learn about the different economies!

By Dana and Brynn

Fourth Grade Music Performance

The fourth grade music performance was awesome!  The experience of learning all the lines of the speaking parts, songs, and knowing when not to sing on solos was tricky.  The base of the performance was when the founding fathers wrote the constitution.  That's why it was called "Shhh, We're Writing the Constitution!"  The competition for roles had a big demand, as there were only six main characters, and 90 fourth graders!

In the performance, I got to play Alexander Hamilton, even though I'm a girl.  The main characters were Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Edmund Randolph, and Governor Morris.  You could get a line, or a solo if you weren't a main character.  The performance went really well.  I thought people were nervous, but we all made it through!

By Estee

Paperclip Economy

We are having a lot of fun in school with our economics unit, Let's Trade. One of the things we did was have a paperclip economy. It was where we had paperclips for money, and we had to buy different squares of paper in different colors to complete our shopping list.

There were four stores, and each one sold the paper squares for different prices. We had to spend our paperclips to fill out or order, but some stores ran out of supplies which made it challenging!

By Josh and Shay

Dear America

We had to do a project on how the country we were studying influenced the United States.  This was part of our PYP unit "Who We Are." The central idea was the movement of people has an effect on culture.  

We did the project on the computers and netbooks.  It was hard work!  We had to use many different websites and books to do the project.  Everyone was studying different countries.  Most of our day was spent working on our projects because it took a long time!

You can watch our presentations here: 
Cultural Showcase

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