Trade Fair

Every since I was given the idea using a trade fair to teach students about money I have desperately wanted to actually be able to do one. I truly believe that this lesson, like the Dragonfly Pond lesson, has the potential to authentically assess students on a myriad of skills. The trade fair that we had in our class was to demonstrate how trade would have worked in the past, I think that it could go far beyond that.

I wrote a lesson plan for third grade that gave students the opportunity to both trade the way fur traders did in the Midwest and then think about how that trade would be different if they had had actual money instead of just trading goods.

This is a great idea in my opinion, but I still think that the lesson can go farther. Teaching the barter system is one way to incorporate social studies, but another would be to have students dress up as different types of traders, from European settlers and Native Americans to Romans and even Mesopotamia. Whatever culture the students are exploring that has a barter system could be used in a trade fair similar to the one we had in class.

And instead of just trading items without any rules as to what each is worth, student could devise as system of trade, figuring out how much of one thing is worth how much of something else. If you introduce coin or paper money into the equation, that integrates many math standards across multiple grades. Having students write out receipts or persuasive signage brings in writing and language arts.

The History Channel has an excellent video on the fur trade to give students background, and Fair Trade Research Nation has many great ideas for different kinds of trade fairs to have in the classroom.