Grades K–2Ages 5–8 · Unit 1.2 · Needs and Wants
Not enough for everything: a free scarcity worksheet for K–2.
Scarcity is a social-studies word a five-year-old can carry: there is never enough for every want, which is why anyone has to choose at all. Naiya has three coins and wants four things. Count the coins, count the wants, and the arithmetic does the teaching.
No account. No email. Nothing collected about your child.
What is on the page
- Three coins and four one-coin items to count
- A yes-or-no question with one right answer
- Choose which three she should get
- An answer page with the one fixed answer and the parts that are open
What it teaches
- That wanting more than you can buy is normal, and has a name
- Counting and comparing two small amounts
- That choosing means giving something up
How to run it
Only one answer is fixed — there is not enough. Which three she picks is entirely the child’s call, and the items are deliberately ordinary so none is obviously right. Do not steer them to the pencil.
The other free worksheets
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The Credit Card Trap
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Get this one ›See all four free financial literacy worksheets, read what second grade learns about money, or start with our guide to financial literacy for kids.
Where it comes from
Unit 1.2 · Needs and Wants of a 266-lesson curriculum.
This sheet is one activity, unchanged, from Financial Foundations™. Teachers can run a free five-week pilot with one class. Families can take the Family Edition home.