Subject: Math, Speaking, Listening, Social Studies

Grade: Kindergarten

Topic: Opportunity Cost

1. Cookies, candy
2. Play money

1. Retells the process used to solve problems
2. Uses a variety of approaches to solve problems

1. Takes turns speaking and listening
2. Makes meaning clear

1. Recalls details after listening to speaker
2. Looks at speaker and remains silent while speaker is talking

Recognizes that money has value because it can be used to purchase goods and services

1. Ask students if they have ever had to make a choice.
2. Tell the students that the teacher has five dollars and wants to go to the toy store. Show students a stuffed bear and some blocks. Explain that both items cost the same amount. Have students explain why the teacher cannot get both items.
3. Explain that the teacher would like both items but must make a choice. The teacher picks the bear. Ask the students what choice was made and what the teacher had to give up in order to get the bear. Explain that when a choice needs to be made the thing that we could not get is called opportunity cost. Have students explain what the opportunity cost was in the above example (blocks).
4. Place different items on the table and have students come up and choose something, ask other students what the opportunity cost was. The opportunity cost is the item that you gave up, or did not choose in order to get the item that you wanted most of all.
5. Give students enough money to purchase a cookie or a piece of candy. After students choose their item, ask them what the opportunity cost was.

Have students explain opportunity cost in their own words. Test their knowledge of the concept by asking them what the opportunity cost is in a variety of situations in which they need to make a choice between two items.

Any time students have to make a choice between two things, talk about opportunity cost.