Activity One: Review of Lesson Three Homework Task
1. Invite students to look at their completed Student Worksheet: Shop around.
2. Write the heading ‘Goods’ and ‘Services’ on the white/blackboard.
3. Invite students to identify which of the items at the top of their worksheet are goods and which are services. Record their responses under the appropriate heading on the white/blackboard.
4. Work your way through the goods/services list and get feedback from students who picked each of the items using the following as a prompt for discussion:
- Was there much difference between your guess about the cost of the good/service and the quotes you researched?
- Was there much difference between the two quotes for the good/service you researched? Why?
- Did anyone pick the more expensive quote for a good/service? Why?
Activity Two: Getting value for money
1. Ask the class to call out the different words they use for money. Record their responses on the white/blackboard.
2. Explain to the class that money can be called lots of different things but our money system has the following useful characteristics:
Money can be reliably stored, saved and retrieved
This means that you can put your money into your purse or wallet, a bank or credit union account etc. and access it when you need it.
Money is predictably useful
This means that if you go to the shops with €100, you can buy €100 worth of goods and/or services. Imagine if you could only buy €90 worth of goods with your €100. That would mean your money was not ‘predictably useful’.
Money is a standard unit of account
This means that coins and notes of the same amount are of equal value, a characteristic that allows you to compare the value of goods/services. Imagine if your €10 note was worth a different amount to another person’s €10 note. It would mean that the money we use could not be used as a standard unit.
3. Divide students into pairs.
4. Invite students to think back to their experience of shopping around for the best value/price (Lesson Three: Homework Task).
5. Ask students to work together in pairs to come up with an example of what might happen if they were shopping around for the best value/price and their money did not have one or more of these three characteristics:
- What would happen if you couldn’t store, save or get access to your money?
- What would happen if you couldn’t guarantee that the money that you have would be worth the same from one day to the next?
- What would happen if you had the same banknote as your friend but the two banknotes were worth different amounts?
6. Take feedback from a selection of pairs, recording their responses on the white/blackboard.
7. Conclude by explaining that these three features of money are very important in terms of how we buy and sell goods and services.
