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Boom Town
by Sonia
Levitin
Orchard Books
32 pages
ISBN 0-531-30043-9
Summary:
After her family moves to California, where her father goes
to work in the gold fields, Amanda decides to make her own fortune
by baking pies. As the demand for more goods and services increases
in the town, Amanda encourages others to start businesses of their
own.
Concept:
Supply and Demand
Definition:
Producers supply goods and services and consumers
demand them. Prices in a market are determined by the interaction
of supply and demand.
Comprehension
Questions:
Identify the
productive resources Amanda used to make her first pie. . (human
resources - Amanda; natural resources - gooseberries, water; capital
resources - small iron skillet, pail, bowl, flour sifter, rolling
pin; ingredients also included - flour, butter, salt)
Explain why
Amanda began to make more pies. (The miners in the gold fields
loved them and kept buying them.)
List specific
examples that caused the demand for Amanda's pies to continue to
increase. (Word spread to people traveling through to stop for
a pie; a trading post was opened that sold Amanda's pies; and more
people moved to the town to live.)
Describe how
the increased demand for pies affected the money jar. (A bigger
jar was needed for all the money coming in.)
Explain how
Amanda improved the productivity of making pies. (She taught
her family how to help her make the pies. Each person had a job.
She also purchased more and better pans, supplies, etc.)
Compare the
number of goods and services offered in the town in the beginning
of the story to the number at the end. (In the beginning, the
town had a stage stop, a pump house, and a few log cabins. At the
end of the story, the town had boomed and had many businesses such
as a trading post, a cooper, a tanner, a miller, a blacksmith, a
laundry, a tailor, a cobbler, a barber, an apothecary, a stable,
a hotel, a café, a bank, a bakery, a school, and a church.)
Other
Concepts: Productive
Resources, Economic
Wants, Goods and
Services, Money, Interdependence,
Specialization,
Producers, Consumers,
Saving, Entrepreneur
(From KidsEcon Posters©: www.kidseconposters.com)
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