FRAMEWORK FOR PLANNING A LITERATURE-BASED PROBLEM SOLVING

LESSON in MATHEMATICS

Name: Summer Stoltzfus

Lesson Title: Money and Math with Good Hot Dogs for Kiki
Grade Level: 4th Grade

Mathematical Goals and Objectives:

Students will explore different outcomes of problems that may involve varying price of
hot dogs, how much money they have to spend, how many hot dogs they could buy,
etc.

Students will explore the relationship between money and fractions.

Children’s Literature Book:

Knock at a Star a Child’s Introduction to Poetry by X. J. Kennedy and Dorothy M.

Kennedy is the book I will use. From this book, I will use the poem Good Hot Dogs for
Kiki by Sandra Cisneros. This book is made up of many different types of poems and is
organized to explain the different aspects of poems very well. The poem that I chose
describes two children going to buy hot dogs.

Common Core Math Standards Addressed:

4.MD Use the four operations to solve word problems involving distances, intervals of
time, liquid volumes, masses of objects, and money, including problems involving
simple fractions or decimals, and problems that require expressing measurements
given in a larger unit in terms of a smaller unit.

Materials:
Knock at a Star a Child’s Introduction to Poetry
Fake coins to help students visualize the money

Designing a Task (or Problem Solving Activity) Based on Children’s Literature

Book

TASK(S) and WHY:

Task: Kiki and her brother went to buy hot dogs after school. The hot dogs cost them .
50¢ each, making their total cost $1.00. Kiki and her brother paid exactly $1.00 using
four quarters, so they did not receive any change. Explore the following problems on
your own or with a partner.

1. What are 5 other ways Kiki and her brother could have paid exactly $1.00 for the
two hot dogs?

2. If you were the owner of the hot dog place, how much would you charge for 1 hot
dog? ________ How much would you charge for a drink? __________ How much

1
would you charge for fries?____________

3. Using the prices at your new hot dog place, how much would it cost for the whole
class (20 people) to buy 2 hot dogs and 1 drink each?

4. What if 2 people come to your stand one day, and they have $10 to spend on
lunch. What could they buy with their $10? Discover 3 different combinations of items
they could buy for $10 and find how much change they would get back.

Challenge: What could someone buy from your stand using exactly $50?

WHY: This task will allow the students to explore the many different combinations that
can be made using money, which will encourage the students to understand
part/whole relationships, compensation, and potentially unitizing. Allowing the
students to determine the prices at their own hot dog stand gives them the
opportunity to explore math and each student will have their own unique answers for
the questions. This also allows the students to take ownership of this activity.

3 PART LESSON PLAN for a Literature-Based Lesson

1) BEFORE: Introducing and Reading the Book

Consider how you will:
Introduce the book. You might introduce the book by asking students a
question, by connecting to students’ personal experiences, by relating a story
or experience of your own, by showing a picture and asking students to talk
about the picture, by giving students a problem or situation to consider, etc..
Read the book. Consider whether you will read all of the book, or parts of the
book. (With some books designed for math lessons, you only need to read a
few pages at a time). Decide whether you will stop as you read, and what
questions you will ask students to support their thinking. Will you ask them to
make predictions? Are there certain pictures or problems in the book that you
want to stop and discuss? Are there certain ideas or terminology in the book
that you might need to clarify?
If the book includes mathematical questions… make sure that you stop and
have students think about the questions that arise. Think about questions that
you can ask students (as you are reading) that will help them start to think
about the important mathematical ideas of the lesson.
Include SPECIFIC QUESTIONS that you will ask students during this part of
the lesson.

To start, I will introduce the book to the students by reading the title and explaining
that this book has many different poems that are written by many different authors. I
will explain that each poem stands on its own and tells it’s own story. Before reading
the poem I will ask the students, “Based on the title, what do you think this poem is
going to be about?” “What do you think this story will be about based on this picture?”
These questions will encourage the students to infer based on the title and picture.
This also promotes individual thinking and there is no right or wrong answer.

2
I will then read to them the poem Good Hot Dogs for Kiki by Sandra Cisneros. I will
then ask the students, “Why didn’t Kiki and her brother receive any change after they
paid for their hotdogs?” I may re-read this section of the poem or the entire poem if it
seems that the students did not grasp this concept. This question is for me to check
their understanding and make sure they were listening well. It also gets the students
thinking about money which they will need for the upcoming task.

2) DURING: POSE a TASK based on the BOOK and EXPLORE the TASK
Consider how you will:
Draw on prior knowledge and experience. Before you pose the task
students will work on, you need to find out what students already know about
the topic / task, and help get them ‘ready’ to work on the task. You might begin
with an easier version of the same task.
Pose the task. Make sure all students understand what the task is asking.
You might ask students to restate the task in their own words. You might have
them brainstorm ways of solving the task. Consider how you will present the
task (on paper, on the overhead, on chart paper, etc..) Will each student have
his/her own copy? Will you read the task to students? Will students work on the
task individually? In groups? With a partner?
Support students as they are working on the task.
You main job in the “during” part of the lesson is to support and extend
students’ thinking as they are working on the task. You will need to:
Find out about students’ thinking. What will you be listening and
looking for, what strategies do you expect to see?
Support students’ thinking when needed – hints, suggestions,
questions to get students moving on the task, or to help students who
are struggling.
Encourage students to test out their own ideas.
Pose questions that help students extend their thinking by looking for
patterns, considering multiple solutions, explaining their reasoning and
thinking, etc.
Include SPECIFIC QUESTIONS that you will ask students.

To transition to the task, I will continue to discuss money with the students by asking,
“Why does it matter whether or not they received change after paying for their hot
dogs?” I will also ask, “What if they had paid for their hot dogs using a $5 bill? Would
they have needed change, and if so how much?”

I will then make sure than each student has a hard copy of the task with room on the
page to work. I will read the task to the students and ask the students, “Turn to a
partner and tell each other what the task at hand is.” I will listen to make sure the
students have got it. Finally, I will ask one student to tell me about the task at hand. I
will then release the students to work on the task independently or in pairs if they
wish.

As the students are working, I will walk around the room listening and looking at
student’s work. To support the students thinking, I will have fake coins for them to
use to help visualize the problems. If I see students struggling, I may ask, “Have you

3
tried using the coins?” I may remind them the value of each coin and remind them of
the relationship between 100¢ and $1. I may check that the students understand the
question at hand by asking them, “Can you tell me what this question is asking in your
own words?”

I will also help the students connect this activity to math concepts by involving
different math operations. If I see some students having no trouble with the activity, I
may ask them, “How could you find the same answer using a different method? How
many different methods do you think there are?”

3) AFTER: Summarizing / Final Discussion

Consider how you will:
Facilitate a class discussion and a sharing of students’ strategies. Think
about how and where students will share, how many will share, and how you
will choose those students.
Encourage dialogue and debate among students. Think about how the class
will determine whether a solution is correct or incorrect. Think about how to
extend the children’s thinking.
Summarize the important mathematical ideas. Consider how you will draw
students’ attention to the big mathematical concepts. Make sure you define
here what those important mathematical ideas are.
Include SPECIFIC QUESTIONS that you will ask students.

To start the class discussion, I would treat the first question posed as a number talk.
I would write on the board $1.00 and below it I would write or draw 4 quarters. I
would then ask students, “What are some other ways you can make $1.00?” and write
their solutions on the board. If there are any answers that are incorrect, I will still
write it on the board and talk about it (as we normally would during a number talk).
During this time, I may ask the students, “What do you notice about cents and
dollars? Is there anything you are wondering about?” Leading the students to discuss
place value and fractions.

I then will ask one student to share the prices they set for their hot dog stand (I will
likely have some students in mind who picked reasonable numbers or ones that
promote teachable moments).

In pairs or groups of three, I will ask the students to answer question number three
using the prices given by the student (I would ask the student who provided the prices
to show a different way to solve the problem).

After giving the students time to work, I will ask, “Can anyone come up, show your
work, and explain how you explored this problem and discovered an answer?” I will
then ask, “Can anyone show their work and explain how they discovered an answer,
the same or different, using a different method?” This type of student involvement
again encourages the feel of a number talk.

By the end of this lesson, the students should realize that there are multiple different
ways to solve one problem. Especially when dealing with money. The students should
also be grasping that the relationship between cents and dollars is very similar to

4
fractions.