What does a teacher do when it is the end of a week…end of a HOMECOMING week…after a PEP RALLY…when kids are wired and tired? Teach a new concept? Possibly but you will probably have limited engagement. Do nothing? Um. NO! You gotta do something. How about reading a children’s book and get students to apply concepts (in my case, specifically, AP Microeconomic concepts)? Yes, please. But first…
About ten years ago, I was asked to conduct a workshop for elementary teachers who would be trained in how to use children’s literature in teaching economic and personal finance concepts. This was a rather challenging, yet fun, workshop to conduct – challenging in understanding learning strategies of elementary teachers but fun through the incorporation of children’s books. Since that time, I have managed to include a few of those children’s books into my Economics classes (but nothing more than just reading it). I wasn’t very consistent in doing this although my intent had always been there. However, everything changed last year when I needed a “filler” activity on a day when many students were absent. Thus came my first children’s book activity in AP Microeconomics – applying implicit and explicit costs through the book Caterina and the Lemonade Stand.
This year, my AP Microeconomics classes are predominately juniors whom I recruited from my AP Government class last year. These are also students who will probably take my AP Macroeconomics class later which means it is considered more of an optional AP class (since they only need one 1/2 credit Econ course to graduate). Therefore, I want to incorporate newer and different strategies into this course. I have decided what better way than to read children’s books.
The first time I did this with this class was with Caterina and the Lemonade Stand book. They did not complete an activity like the previous year; however, I read it aloud to the students and discussed the different costs involved with a lemonade stand, specifically implicit and explicit costs. What I didn’t realize was the attentive faces that would be glued on me while I read. You could have heard a pin drop. One student even requested a piece of carpet to sit on next time! After that moment, I realized I wanted to incorporate more books with each unit. The problem, though, is finding enough books that will help teach college-level concepts. It was a challenge but one I was willing to take.
That weekend, I went to the book store and sat for over an hour looking through books that would help teach the upcoming concept – law of diminishing marginal returns. After much searching, I decided to use Mr. Gumpy’s Outing.
When teaching the law of diminishing marginal returns, I always do a simulation. You can find many variations of this simulation online. Here are a few: Paper Chain Factory, Widget Production. This time, however, I decided to read this book to the students, emphasizing when all the animals fell out of the boat. I told them to think about this book and make a correlation between this book and the next activity – the simulation (photos below). After the simulation, we discussed the law of diminishing marginal returns. I usually relate this principle to the saying “there are too many cooks in the kitchen.” This time, though, I also included “too many animals in the boat.”
Now fast forward to the Friday at the end of Homecoming week and after a Pep Rally… I couldn’t NOT do anything (pardon the double negative). But…I didn’t want to teach a new concept (there is no tired like homecoming tired). Therefore, what better way to engage the students in a hands-on activity than to read the other lemonade stand book I had from my workshop from years ago and apply all concepts studied thus far in Unit 3?
This was a last minute activity created the day before class. I wasn’t sure about everything but knew the basics I wanted them to incorporate. While the students were working on the assignment, I decided to actually find a computation worksheet and have them each complete the same one (with the same fixed and variable costs) with each group setting own price. Before the next class, I also decided to have each group identify the profit-maximization point (MR=MC). We put all these on the board and studied all the different computations by the students (like a market analysis). So how did all this come together?
First, I read them the book. I did not realize that so many of my students were Pinkalicious fans. I am not kidding you when I say that students (all students) are extremely quiet during my reading time. I then introduced the lesson to the students: they will be making lemonade stands. For each stand, they will need to create a unique name, complete the worksheet (compute costs and profit projections based on chosen price), and draw all Unit 3 graphs learned so far (MC curve, MP curve, and cost curves). They also hadto identify implicit and explicit costs. They then had to include a picture of themselves “in” the lemonade stand, as if they were selling lemonade. The following class, we looked at each group’s profit maximization.
What I thought was just a fun activity turned out to be a great “go-to” while reviewing those concepts for their Unit 3 (Part 1) test (I divide Unit 3 into two tests). I was able to consistently refer back to these hands-on activities (paper chains, lemonade stands) to explain the various concepts and graphs. I found this to be more successful than years past when I just discussed.
The other day, I came across a quote by Neil Gaiman (an author I love) – “We have an obligation to read aloud to our children. To read them things they enjoy. To read to them stories we are already tired of. To do the voices, to make it interesting, and not to stop reading to them just because they learn to read to themselves. We have an obligation to use reading-aloud time as bonding time, as time when no phones are being checked, when the distractions of the world are put aside.” Thank you, Neil Gaiman, for reminding me (and all of us) that students are never too old to hear once loved (or newly loved) children’s books.
