Subjects: Communities and Families

People earn, save, and spend money to satisfy their needs and wants. Making the right choice between the two is not always easy. In this charming movie, two friends wake up and find themselves on a desert island where the ‘Genie of Wise Choices’ lives. While there, the genie helps the children understand the importance of making good choices as they are faced with the difficult task of choosing between an essential need or a desired want. Water, food, clothing, shelter, and clean air are all introduced and discussed as your students learn about the difference between a need and a want. DVD features include on-screen teacher’s guide and vocabulary plus chapter selections: (1) Introduction (2) Wants and needs (3) basic needs (4) water (5) food (6) clothing (7) shelter (8) clean air (9) Money (10) review and conclusion.

Learn about the workers who serve our communities and the services they provide – police officers, fire fighters, sanitation workers, grocery clerks, and others. Discover that providing a service means doing something to help someone else. Hear simple explanations of the terms goods and services, consumers, and income, and learn why people work. DVD features include on-screen teacher’s guide and vocabulary plus chapter selections: (1) Work (2) Good and Services (3) Why do people work (4) Needs and wants (5) Public Service workers(6) Private Service workers (7) Volunteers (8) Review and conclusion.

Learn about the people who make or grow the goods we need – production workers. See how these workers make trucks and houses and grow food for the community. Understand simple explanations of the terms goods and services, consumers, income, and learn why people work. DVD features include on-screen teacher’s guide and vocabulary plus chapter selections: (1) Introduction (2) People work to earn money (3) Products that workers make (4) Homes are products (5) Artists are production workers (6) People choose their work for different reasons (7) Cooperative companies (8) Review.

Discover that clothes are needed to retain body heat and to protect against the sun. Learn about the materials that make clothing, how cloth was made in the past with a spinning wheel and loom, and how it is made today in automated cloth mills. See how clothing has changed throughout the ages and how people wear different clothes as needed – bathing suits for swimming, special clothing for fire fighting, etc. DVD features include on-screen teacher’s guide and vocabulary plus chapter selections.

Food is one of the four basic needs of families. Everybody needs food whether they live in an arid desert or a snow-covered forest, and what they eat is largely determined by where they live. Learn that food doesn’t magically appear in a supermarket but comes from farms, ranches, the sea, etc. and that halfway around the world a “supermarket” might be an open-air marketplace without refrigeration where people must buy food daily. DVD features include on-screen teacher’s guide and vocabulary plus chapter selections.

Understand that shelter is one of the four basic needs of families, and witness dozens of human shelters – igloos to mansions – from equator to poles and sea to mountaintop. Learn how shelters protect families from the elements and how shelters are often built with materials that are available locally. DVD features include on-screen teacher’s guide and vocabulary plus chapter selections.

Compare the lives of people living in a community today to those who lived recently and long ago. Re-creations, artifacts, photographs, and time-lines tell the stories of how our parents, grandparents, and other ancestors lived on a daily basis. This program includes different types of shelter, food, clothing, transportation, recreation, and forms of education. DVD features include on-screen teacher’s guide and vocabulary plus chapter selections: (1) Introduction (2) The past (3) Grandparent’s generation (4) Life 100 years ago (5) Pioneers (6) Native Americans (7) Immigrants (8) Change (9) Future.

Discover the importance of farms in providing food. See silos, barns, plows, and tractors, and learn how they are used. Watch the effects the seasons have on a farm and what life on a family farm is like-such as caring for the animals and showing them at a fair. (1) Introduction (2) Spring (3) Summer (4) Fall (5) Winter (6) Review (7) Credits (99) End.

Learn about different types of families – from single parent families to multi-generational families. Learn about extended families and family histories. Discover how families are formed, grow, and change with marriages, adoptions, and the birth of children. See how families celebrate holidays and birthdays, help with household chores, teach each other, and are always there for each other. DVD features include on-screen teacher’s guide and vocabulary plus chapter selections: (1) Introduction (2) Family (3) Families are different (4) Weddings (5) Two kinds of families (6) Families live in different places (7) Money (8) Family Fun (9) Families work (10) Families change (11) Family rules (12) Family celebrations (13) Family history (14) Conclusion.