Miss Beery's Car Factory

This week our second and third graders have been learning a bit more about economics in social studies. To understand a key concept in economics, "specialization", a little better we participated in an activity where my classroom was turned into "Miss Beery's Car Factory". I was the boss at this car factory (a very mean boss who didn't pay her workers...) and the students were organized into three groups to be my factory workers. Two of these factory worker groups "specialized" by having a job for each of the workers. For example, one worker cut out the car body, another colored the tires, another glued on the tires, etc. These "specialization" groups had a type of assembly line going on, while the other group of factory workers didn't have any "specialization". So, this group of workers had to do all of the jobs by themselves rather than work together and form the "interdependent relationship" we've been studying. Students were given these instructions and they were told they had 20 minutes to make as many cars as they could...BUT, the boss had to approve their cars in order to be counted. If the cars were not perfect, the boss would throw out their cars and they wouldn't be counted for their team (I'm a VERY mean boss...). The three groups were told that the group with the most cars made once the 20 minutes were up would be the winner!

After the 20 minutes ended, the results were on the board. It was obvious who the winners of this activity were. The groups that "specialized" had many more cars made than the group that didn't "specialize". We talked about how much easier it was for the groups who had their own specific jobs and formed the "interdependent relationship" to create the cars than the other group. Students loved participating and working in "Miss Beery's Car Factory" throughout this activity and they now have a better understanding of these important social studies concepts!