Wants vs Needs Worksheets

About this resource

Is a coat a need or a want? What about a video game? This is a complete kit for one first economics idea: needs and wants. Sixteen simple pictures (eight needs and eight wants) sit beside their words, and every page asks the child to look, read and decide. Needs are food, water, clothes and a home. Wants are things we like to have, such as a toy, candy or a bike. Only the clear cases are used, so every page has one right answer. It comes with a tracker, a class grid and a family page, so nothing has to be written from scratch.

EVERYTHING INSIDE (28 pages)

• 13 student pages in 7 page types: Meet Needs and Wants, Read About (three pages), Need or Want?, Find the One, Name It, Fill It In (two pages), Cut and Paste (three pages) and My Needs and Wants
• 16 picture cards drawn for this resource: 8 needs and 8 wants, each with its word printed beside or under it
• 3 reading passages of 6 short sentences each (18 sentences, none longer than 12 words), with words to know
• 68 scored items on 11 pages, every answer read from the passages, never typed by hand
• 6 true-or-false items (2 on each reading page)
• 14 circle items: 8 pictures to circle Need or Want, and 6 rows of three pictures to circle the need or the want
• 12 Name It answers: write the word from a box of nine (three are not answers), then circle Need or Want
• 12 fill-in blanks from word boxes of nine words, three of them spare
• 24 cut-and-paste pieces on 3 sort mats (A need / A want): pictures, then words, then sentences
• 2 answer keys
• 1 tracker (page, page type, items right, date) and 1 whole-class progress grid
• 1 team note (a hand-off page between team meetings) and 1 home page
• 1 filled example (an invented student), 1 phrase bank (16 observable-language starters), 1 binder cover and 6 divider tabs with a spine label to cut out
• Start Here and a how-to-read-a-page page

The Page Types, Easiest First

1. Meet Needs and Wants (1 dot): four needs and four wants as pictures with words, what a need is, what a want is, and two lines to write your own.

2. Read About, 3 pages (1 or 2 dots): a passage of six short sentences about needs, wants, or a child named Sam, the words to know, two statements to circle true or false, and two lines to write one more thing learned.

3. Need or Want?, 1 page (1 dot): eight pictures. Look, then circle Need or Want.

4. Find the One, 1 page (2 dots): six rows of three pictures. Circle the need in three rows and the want in three rows.

5. Name It, 1 page (2 dots): six pictures. Write each word from a box of nine (three are not answers), then circle Need or Want.

6. Fill It In, 2 pages (2 or 3 dots): Set A finishes six sentences; Set B finishes a short story, each from a box of nine words (three are not used).

7. Cut and Paste, 3 pages (1, 2 or 3 dots): a block of 8 pieces that touch edge to edge, so cutting is a few straight lines. Paste 1 sorts pictures, Paste 2 sorts short phrases, Paste 3 sorts sentences into A need or A want.

8. My Needs and Wants, 1 page (3 dots): write three needs and three wants, then draw one.

Only The Clear Cases

Every item is plainly a need (food, water, clothes, a home) or plainly a want (a toy, a video game, candy, a bike, a ball, a kite, a balloon, a teddy bear). Nothing is a borderline case, and there are no prices or numbers anywhere in the file. The words in the boxes that are not answers appear on no picture and in no passage, so a child has to read and look to choose.

Built For The Child Holding The Page

A big "My name" line, one short instruction with a small picture, large rounded type, big answer boxes and big pictures, and dots (not words or colors) to show which level a page is. Nothing on a student page is written for an adult. The pictures are plain flat shapes that still read on a black-and-white photocopy, and no answer depends on a color.

No Guessing The Answer

Wherever a child picks among printed choices (need or want, which picture in a row, where a word sits in the box, the order of the pieces on the cut strip), the position of the right answer is checked so it does not sit in the same spot three times in a row.

Type In, Or Print

The name line and every answer box are type-in fields in any PDF reader: click one, type, then save. The same goes for the tracker, the class grid, the team note and the home page. This is a fillable PDF; it is not a Google Slides or PowerPoint file.

Who This Is For

Kindergarten through second grade classrooms, self-contained and resource rooms, and any teacher building a first economics or community unit into a center, a small group or a morning work folder. The sentences are short, and the teacher can read each page aloud.

What This Is, And What It Is Not

A wants and needs worksheet set with the record-keeping around it. It is not a timed test, a screener, a clinical tool, or a claim about any student's age or rate of progress. There is no IEP goal language or eligibility wording anywhere in the file.