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Sixth Grade - Language Arts

 

Activities

Homer Price (The Doughnuts)

Financial and Economic Concepts: Productivity

The book, Homer Price, consists of six stories. In "The Doughnuts," Homer's Uncle Ulysses's newest capital resource, the doughnut machine, goes on a rampage making hundreds of doughnuts. In the process of figuring out how to sell the doughnuts, Homer helps a woman find her bracelet which she lost in the doughnut machine.

In the activities provided, students research inventions that have improved productivity and fill in note cards with their findings.

Complete Lesson Plan

Music Connection

The Ice Cream Stand

Financial and Economic Concepts: Free markets and prices, supply and demand, productivity

Students will learn about supply, demand, price, competition, and entrepreneurial skills in this lesson. They will put what they learned into action by creating an ice cream stand, to compete with other stands in the classroom.

Conduct the following activity to help the students understand the main concepts of the lesson.

1. Place the students in groups of four or five. Tell them they will create an ice cream stand. In their ice cream stands they will make sundaes and milkshakes. They will be judged on three points.
   One point is the attractiveness of their stand. Another is the quality (or taste) of their sundaes. The final point is the quality (the taste) of their milkshakes. A group of four or five adults will independently judge the ice cream stands according to each point. The teacher will pay $15.00 to the team with the best stand, $15.00 to the team with the best sundae (plus the price of the sundae), and $15.00 to the team with the best milkshake (plus the price of the milkshake). Students must set a price for their sundaes and their milkshakes-a price that will allow them to make a profit. Explain that the price of the sundae and the milkshake will be a factor in deciding which one is best. Explain that the cost of making one sundae is 25 cents, plus the cost of any supplies the students had to buy; the cost of a making one milkshake is 35 cents, plus costs.
2. Tell the students they will need to develop a plan for obtaining all of the necessary ingredients for making their sundae and milkshake since no group will have all of the necessary ingredients. The students will need to work well as a team, divide jobs, and formulate a plan for obtaining the ingredients they need.
3. The students will have about 30 minutes to design their stand (including menus) and make their sundae and milkshake. Please distribute the following materials to each group:
   • Group 1 $15.00, milk, bowls, ice cream, chocolate syrup, straws
   • Group 2 $15.00, milk, caramel, chocolate syrup, spoons, ice cream
   • Group 3 $15.00, blender, cups, napkins, construction paper, markers, ice cream
   • Group 4 $15.00, two scoopers, blender, markers, ice cream, milk
   • Group 5 $15.00, ice cream, bowls, construction paper, blender, one scooper
   • Group 6 $15.00, milk, caramel, chocolate syrup, ice cream, cups
   Once the students have established their stands and produced their sundaes and milkshakes, judge each ice cream stand, taste each sundae and milkshake, and award the prize money based on the criteria established.
4. Discuss with students their thoughts and experiences as they went through the activity. Discuss whether they students used money to purchase supplies or whether they traded for the supplies. Ask how much profit they were hoping to make from each sale. Tell the students awarded the money as you did.

Assessment:
Ask the students to write a brief paragraph explaining how forces of supply and demand determines price. Also ask the students to write about what did or didn't make their groups successful in this activity. Finally, have the students write a paragraph explaining three or four specific ideas they learned from this lesson.

Complete Lesson Plan - This site has great links for background information!