Column: WCS students explore the world of work

WORTHINGTON — Busy hands and feet, smiles and hugs and lots of questions are what you will find in the first- and second-grade room at Worthington Christian School. A classroom full of 13 bright, happy and energetic children ready to learn new and exciting things each day.

One of the highlights from this past year has been our social studies unit on work. The curriculum focuses on jobs that provide goods and services. We learned that services are jobs that help other people like doctors, teachers and police officers, while other jobs sell goods to people like at grocery stores or clothing stores.

Another highlight in this unit was learning what to do with our money after we’ve earned it. The students were given pretend money for doing chores around the classroom. Once they earned the money, they had to decide what to do with it. They learned that their earnings should be divided among three categories: savings, spending and giving to others. This concept teaches them to be good stewards of the money God has given them.

To give the students more exposure to jobs, parents were invited to come and speak about their careers. Pastors, realtors, dental hygienists, cheerleading coaches, farmers, yoga teachers and tax agents were just a few of the jobs students learned about. They were thrilled to have their moms and dads come in and see real-life examples of what we were learning about in school.

At the end of our unit, we put everything we had learned about work into practice by hosting a bake sale. The students made cookies, brownies and other sweet treats at home and sold them at school to their family, friends and even bus drivers. The day of our sale the students were very excited and eager to do their special jobs. Our first-graders were in charge of welcoming the guests, handing out and packaging the treats in bags and thanking our customers for coming to the sale. The second-graders had the important job of taking the money. This was a wonderful hands-on opportunity for them to practice counting money and give back change.

After the sale was over, we counted our money and came to a grand total of $178.00! The cheers and excitement that came from our classroom could be heard clear down the hallway. Half of the money we earned will go towards new playground equipment and the other half towards our field trip to Sioux Falls where we will visit the fire department, police station and bakery. This field trip will give us an even greater opportunity to learn more about jobs. The students at WCS praise God for the energy and ability to work and thank Him for providing so generously at our bake sale!

Upcoming WCS events: Today — Southwest Christian Track Meet; May 26 — Eighth-grade graduation; May 27 — Last day of school.

Pam Schutt is a first- and second-grade teacher at Worthington Christian School.

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