Minilesson

Show What You Know: Read, Write and Solve Math Problems

Grades
2 - 3
Lesson Plan Type
Minilesson
Estimated Time
Three 60-minute sessions
Publisher
ILA
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Overview

Students use a variety of texts (children's literature, informational texts, websites, apps, online interactives) to gather information and evidence about making lemonade in order to create and solve mathematical problems. They start by examining texts about making and selling lemonade, and find places where they can tell mathematical stories about the texts. Students then turn these stories into word problems, solve the word problems, and record their solutions using an interactive whiteboard app like ShowMe or Inkflow. Finally, they learn to identify real-world mathematics problems in various texts about lemonade, including recipes, children's literature, online simulations, and other informational texts.

From Theory to Practice

  • It is necessary to provide students with opportunities to view diverse material (i.e., fiction, informational texts, illustrations, graphs) and show an understanding of mathematics in the real world.

  • Engage students with different strategies to read multimodal texts.

  • Students need to visually represent what they are learning through dramatizations, charts, illustrations, and other artistic creations.
  • Before reading, create an environment that supports the concepts to be learned.
  • When using iPads, students may be more proficient with the technology than the literacy strategies, so it is essential to focus on literacy concepts through modeling and think-alouds, followed by guided and independent practice.

Common Core Standards

This resource has been aligned to the Common Core State Standards for states in which they have been adopted. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, CCSS alignments are forthcoming.

State Standards

This lesson has been aligned to standards in the following states. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, standard alignments are not currently available for that state.

NCTE/IRA National Standards for the English Language Arts

  • 3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
  • 4. Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
  • 5. Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
  • 6. Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.
  • 8. Students use a variety of technological and information resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge.
  • 12. Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).

Materials and Technology

  • An iPad (or computer) with Internet access and an LCD projector (ideally, you should also have enough iPads for small groups of students to work together)

  • Children's books:

    Lemonade for Sale
    (1997) by Stuart Murphy

    Lemonade in Winter (2012) by Emily Jenkins

    Lemonade War (2009) by Jacqueline Davies

    Max's Lemonade Stand Dilemma: Reader's Theatre Script

Printouts

Websites

Preparation

  1. Practice using your chosen interactive whiteboard app, preferably either ShowMe Interactive Whiteboard or Inkflow: Visual Notebook for Handwriting, Sketching, and Photos. During the lesson, students need to use these apps to solve mathematics problems by creating the problems, drawing their solutions, and narrating their solutions. Ideally you should have enough iPads for students to use individually throughout this process, but students can share iPads or use them in small groups if that works better in your classroom. (You can also adapt the lesson if necessary by having students first draw the solutions on paper and then videotape their own problem-solving demonstrations).


  2. Place images of lemons, lemonade, and lemonade stands on a bulletin board to create a context for learning. Include essential mathematics and financial literacy disciplinary vocabulary you wish to feature (e.g., problem solving, add, subtract, multiply, supply, demand, profit, cost, money, budget, ingredients, consumers, producers, buy, sell, goods, and services). These can be found resources, and later you can also add resources created by your students. Use the following web resources as a starting point:

  3.  

  4. Choose one or more children’s books or scripts to use to immerse students within the lemonade stand experience:

  5.  

  6. Review the interactive lemonade games, and choose one to use with your students:

Student Objectives

Students will

  • Identify real-world mathematics problems by reading and engaging with a variety of multimodal texts

  • Demonstrate their real-world mathematics skills by solving the problems they find in these texts

  • Create their own real world-mathematics problems by using their writing, drawing, and speaking skills

  • Review and evaluate the real-world mathematics problems created by their peers

Session 1

  1. Before reading: Refer students to the pictures and words displayed on your lemonade bulletin board. Using your iPad or computer and LCD projector, display Norman Rockwell Museum: Lemonade Stand 1955 for them, and identify it as a multimodal text. Ask students, “What kind of text is this (i.e., picture, image, poster)? What kind of information do you see in this image?”

  2. During reading: Ask students comprehension questions about the text (i.e., who, what, when, where, how, why) as you examine it during a group think-aloud. Here are some sample questions:

    • Who is in the picture?

    • What are they doing?

    • When did this take place? How do you know?

    • Where are they? What makes you think that?

    • I wonder how they made the lemonade. What do you think based on what you see? What else might we need to know about making lemonade (i.e., a recipe, details on mixing, a list of ingredients)?

    • I wonder why they decided to create a lemonade stand. They are selling lemonade for five cents a glass. Why do people sell things?

  3. You may also wish to ask questions about the source of the Norman Rockwell text:

    • Who created this image?

    • When did he create it?

    • Where is it stored?

    • How do you know?

    • What other information is here?

  4. After reading: Say to students, “Let’s see if we can make a mathematics problem by looking at the Norman Rockwell image again. I wonder how much money they will make if they fill all of the glasses in the picture. How could I figure that out?” While using the evidence in this text (nine glasses at 5 cents a glass), model how students can figure out the problem by visually representing it, using either ShowMe Interactive Whiteboard or Inkflow: Visual Notebook for Handwriting, Sketching, and Photos.

    • First, draw the elements for the students’ problem on the screen as if you were using paper (i.e., draw the stand, glasses, and 5-cents sign).

    • Then turn on the recording, and have students describe the problem. For example, “I have nine glasses, and I want to sell lemonade for 5 cents a glass. How much money will I make? How will I solve this?”

    • Talk through the problem aloud while annotating it. For example, you can put a 5 cents symbol inside each glass, add all the glasses, and record your answer. Then ask students for another way to solve the problem, such as having x glasses and paying y money per glass. Lead them toward a mathematical equation and a solution. For example, say, “I sold my nine glasses of lemonade for 5 cents a glass. That means I sold 5-cent glasses nine times.” Prompt students to create the equation themselves.

  5. Have students work in small groups to create a simple lemonade problem using a different number of glasses and different prices. They should work out their problems on paper. When they are finished, they can go to a quiet space and record their answers on the iPad using ShowMe or Inkflow. If you wish to print out their solutions for later review or to hang on your board, explain to students how to take screen shots and email them to you.

      Session 2

      1. During Session 2, use an informational text about lemonade in order to lead students toward possible mathematics problems. For example, using The Lemonade Stand, begin with a guided reading of the text. While you read aloud, conduct a think-aloud about a few mathematics problem opportunities. For instance, on the second page, there is a recipe for lemonade. Ask questions such as the following:

        • “I wonder how the ingredients change if we want to make twice as much lemonade? How could I figure that out?”

        • “What if I wanted to make less lemonade?”

        • “If lemons cost 25 cents each, how much would the lemons cost for this recipe?”
      2. When reading the texts, follow the structure of questions from Session 1, but make sure to scaffold for students so that they become more responsible for finding and solving mathematics problems themselves. With guided reading, use the Session 1 sequence.


      3. Before reading: Discuss and define your chosen book. Ask some of the following questions as you do a picture walk through some of the pages.

        • Is this fiction, or is it an informational text?

        • How do you know?

        • How do I read this?

        • How do I find my way through the text?

      4. During reading: Ask students to follow along while you read, saying, “While I read, see what new information you can learn about making lemonade. In addition, write down your ideas for new problems you could make by using information from the text.” As described in step 1, provide a think-aloud for one or more pages of the book where you identify potential mathematics problems. Then, while you read, you may wish to have students identify a few possible problems. Encourage students to continue making notes while you read.

      5. After reading: Have students discuss the ideas they recorded for real-world mathematics problems. You may wish to have them to create new mathematics problems now or wait until they experience more texts.

      Session 3

      Note that this session is very similar to Session 2 to give students extra practice before evaluation.

      1. Choose a new text to work with. You can use any of the texts from the list of Resources.

      2. Before reading: Discuss and define the text. Ask some of the following questions as you do a picture walk through some of the pages.

        • Is this fiction, or is it an informational text?

        • How do you know?

        • How do I read this?

        • How do I find my way through the text?

        • During reading: Ask students to follow along while you read, saying, “While I read, see what new information you can learn about making lemonade. In addition, write down your ideas for new problems you could make by using information from the text.” As described in step 1 of Session 2, provide a think-aloud for one or more pages of the book where you identify potential math problems. Then, while you read, have students identify a few possible problems. Encourage students to continue making notes while you read.

        • After reading: Pass out the Peer Evaluation Rubric, and tell students that they are going to use these forms to work through and evaluate each other’s new, real-world mathematics problems. Divide students into small groups to work together and create a problem. They can either use ShowMe Interactive Whiteboard or Inkflow: Visual Notebook for Handwriting, Sketching, and Photos on iPads and print their problems for exchange (this is preferable), or work with paper and pencil if necessary. Circulate to answer any questions that arise.

        • Have students exchange their work and try to solve each other’s problems while filling out the Peer Evaluation Rubric.

        • Collect students’ problems and rubrics for your review. Fill out a Mathematical Problems Rubric for each student, taking into account both their classroom participation and their group work as part of the evaluation process.


          Extensions

          • Use the texts for this lesson to have students read for the sequencing of instructions. Students can use the ReadWriteThink Interactive Timeline to illustrate the steps of a recipe or creating a lemonade stand.

          • Have students search through texts in the classroom to think of new mathematics problems based on different goods. They can use the ReadWriteThink Alphabet Organizer Mobile App or the Alphabet Organizer Online Interactive to take photos and write their ideas for new problems. For example, examining a book about cupcakes, students can take a photo of the book or insert an image of a cupcake. Then they can write a word problem such as “I wonder how many people prefer chocolate or vanilla cupcakes. I can solve this with a survey.”

          Student Assessment / Reflections

          • Using the Mathematical Problems Rubric, assess how well students were able to communicate through writing their understanding of mathematical problems and how to solve them. Fill in the rubric with anecdotal comments about the individual progress of students as needed.

          • Have students assess each other’s work using the Peer Evaluation Rubric.
          Erica Richard
          K-12 Teacher
          This Show What You Know: Read, Write, and Solve Math Problems is a exemplar to use for Math Instruction where educators would want to incorporate more real world experiences with problem solving and writing in mathematics. I am a firm believer that we need to incorporate more writing across all content areas but especially in mathematics. This is a problem of practice that I am currently focusing time and effort on in my school building and district.
          Erica Richard
          K-12 Teacher
          This Show What You Know: Read, Write, and Solve Math Problems is a exemplar to use for Math Instruction where educators would want to incorporate more real world experiences with problem solving and writing in mathematics. I am a firm believer that we need to incorporate more writing across all content areas but especially in mathematics. This is a problem of practice that I am currently focusing time and effort on in my school building and district.
          Erica Richard
          K-12 Teacher
          This Show What You Know: Read, Write, and Solve Math Problems is a exemplar to use for Math Instruction where educators would want to incorporate more real world experiences with problem solving and writing in mathematics. I am a firm believer that we need to incorporate more writing across all content areas but especially in mathematics. This is a problem of practice that I am currently focusing time and effort on in my school building and district.

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