Yum-onomics
Using Literature to Teach
Economics
Presented by: Deborah Kozdras: USF Stavros Center
dkozdras@usf.edu Website: http://yumonomics.com
Who Are We?
-Workshops for educators K-12
-Resources for educators K-12
Importance of Economics
Why?
• Economics is part of Social Studies K-8 and a subject
area in high school.
• Civics and Economics – Middle School
• Financial Literacy – Mathematics
• Entrepreneurial Creative Thinking
The Economics Way of Thinking is a logical decisionmaking process for everyday life!
Why Economics?
http://vimeo.com/6268631?ab
http://vimeo.com/6268631?ab
3 Pigs + 6 Principles
Econ-cepts:. Natural/human/capital resources, scarcity, trade-offs
1. People Choose: What was scarce? What did the pigs decide to do?
2. All Choices Involve Costs: What were the costs of building a brick
vs a straw or stick home
3. People Respond to Incentives in Predictable Ways: Wolf went
down chimney as expected…What was his incentive?
4. Economic Systems Influence Choices and Incentives: In a
sequel, how could the choices and incentives change?
5. Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth: What special skills do the pigs
have? How could they participate in voluntary trade/specialization?
6. The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future: What were the
consequences of the pigs’ decisions to skimp on building?
• Three Little Pigs book Free at project Gutenberg
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18155/18155-h/18155-h.htm
Read-Aloud Questions Based on the 6
Core Economic Principles
http://www.kidseconposters.com
People Choose: What does the
Economic Systems Influence
character want? What is scarce?
Choices and Incentives: What
We have to make a decision;
is the economic system? What is
what are the alternatives?
produced? How is it produced?
For whom is it produced?
All Choices Involve Costs: The
opportunity cost is the next best
Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth:
alternative you give up when you
How do people gain from
make a choice. What was the
specialization? Is there any trade
opportunity cost of the decision?
or money exchange in the story?
Is this missing? What are the
People Respond to Incentives:
benefits of trade?
What are the possible incentives
(actions, awards, or rewards)?
The Consequences of Choices
How do the incentives determine
Lie in the Future: What were
choices? Do the incentives
the costs and benefits of the
change? What is the result of the
decision made? What were the
change in incentives?
unintended consequences?
How to Eat Fried Worms
Econ-cepts: Choice, Decisionmaking, Incentive, Opportunity
Cost, Benefit, Costs
• People Choose: Why did Billy
decide to eat fried worms?
What was his scarce
resource? What did he decide
to do?
• All Choices Involve Costs:
What were the costs for Billy to
eat the fried worms? What if he
decided not to eat the worms?
His opportunity cost would be
the next best alternative, not
eating the worms.
• People Respond to Incentives:
What was Billy’s incentive for
eating fried worms. Were his
incentives positive or
negative? What were the
benefits for Billy eating the
worms? Think about that shiny
new bicycle!
• The Consequences of Choices
Lie in the Future: What were
the consequences of Billy’s
decision to eat the worms?
Were there any unintended
consequences?
Children’s Literature as a Virtual Field
Trip for Economic Vocabulary
• Blachowicz, C.L.Z., & Obrochta, C. (2005). Vocabulary visits: Virtual
field trips for content vocabulary development. The Reading
Teacher, 59(3), 262–268.
• Field trips give students the opportunity to experience a concept and
vocabulary in an exciting and engaging way.
• Read-alouds are one way to introduce new concepts and
vocabulary to students.
• Discussions following read-alouds allow students to use new
vocabulary and to further investigate new concepts introduced
through the read-aloud.
• First Write and Final Write as an assessment tool to compare the
amount of vocabulary and concepts learned during a unit of study.
Use the Story with Econ-cepts and
Vocabulary Identified in Standards
• Examine book for standards and vocabulary/concepts.
• First Read-Aloud: create a context for the story.
• Second Read Aloud/Think-Aloud: focus on econ-cepts
– Before Reading: First Write-students write/draw about econ-cepts.
– Before Reading: Introduce economics concepts: CDE
(Concepts/Definitions/Examples).
– During Reading: Learn-alouds should cue some key spaces where
economic concepts are illuminated.
– During Reading: Students should be active thinkers and learners.
Use thumbs-up for times when they identify concepts.
– After Reading: Review econ-cepts CDE as a group.
– After Reading: Second Write-students write/draw about econ-cepts.
– Follow-up: Students work with a partner to create a digital photostory illuminating the econ-cepts.
Fancy Economic Words:
•
•
•
•
Fancy Nancy Uses Fancy Words within her books
Examine the book
Check the standards/concepts/vocabulary for grade level
Where can you introduce Fancy Economic Words?
First Read
• Read-aloud
• Immerse students in
the story context
Second Read: Before Reading
First Write about
concepts/vocabulary
ReadWriteThink.org Stapleless Book
http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/i
nteractives/stapleless/
Second Read: Before Reading
Introduce Concepts: Complete C-D-E
Buyer
Seller
Trade
Money
Currency
Scarcity
Second Read: During Reading
Read Aloud/Think Aloud
When Nancy was a buyer on a shopping spree what did
she want to want to buy? A buyer is a fancy word for
a person who buys something.
What did she need to be a buyer? She needs currency,
which is a fancy word for money.
Who was the seller or retailer? A retailer is a fancy word
for someone who sells goods.
After Nancy bought her sister’s present, she had a
scarcity of what? Scarcity is a fancy word for not
being able to have everything we want.
Because money was scarce, Nancy decided to become
an entrepreneur and opened her own fashion
boutique. Entrepreneur is a fancy word for someone
who starts a business.
Thumbs up
for fancy
economic
words
Second Read: After Reading
CDE
Second Write
• Review concept –
definition – example page
• Students add more fancy
economic words
• Students do a
quickdraw/quickwrite of
concepts
• Compare this to before
reading
Second Read: After Reading
I am an
entrepreneur.
That’s a fancy
way of saying I
started my own
business!
• Digital storytelling: Get images from official website
http://www.fancynancyworld.com/
• Color Fancy
Nancyhttp://www.harpercollinschildrens.com/harperchildrensimages/game/fa
ncynancycoloring.swf and use PowerPoint’s speech bubbles.
Lunch Money
Econ-cepts: Entrepreneur,
competition, capital resources,
advertising, specialization,
saving/investing, price,
insurance, profit, human
capital
• If I had a million dollars…
Become a virtual entrepreneur!
• Play Hot Shot Business
http://disney.go.com/hotshot/hs
b2/index.html
Little Red Hen
Econ-cepts: Capital Resources,
Human Resources, Natural
Resources, Entrepreneurship
• Have you ever worked hard on
a project and no one would
help? You have something in
common with LRH!
• Econedlink lesson
http://www.econedlink.org/lessons
/index.php?lid=389&type=educato
r
• Compare and contrast Little Red
Hen (Makes a Pizza) with the
original from Project Gutenberg
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebook
s/18735
Lawn Boy
• Entrepreneurship
• Grade 4–7—Learning the
workings of the free-market
economy has never been more
fun than in this tall tale of
entrepreneurship set in Eden
Prairie, MN. When the
narrator's grandmother gives
him an old rider mower for his
12th birthday, his life changes!
Strawberry Girl
• 4th grade essential question:
“How did Florida’s economy
grow and change?”
• What is the economic
importance of the strawberry
for Florida?
• Compare and contrast the
strawberry farm in the book
with today.
• Create an advertisement for
Florida strawberries using the
ReadWriteThink printing press
http://www.readwritethink.org/c
lassroom-resources/studentinteractives/readwritethinkprinting-press-30036.html
Pancakes, Pancakes
Econ-cepts: specialization,
division of labor,
interdependence, market,
productive resources (natural,
human, capital)
Boy wants pancakes. Mom says
before she can make the
pancakes, he has to gather the
ingredients.
Use ReadWriteThink Timeline
http://www.readwritethink.org/c
lassroom-resources/studentinteractives/timeline30007.html to describe the
timeline of resources from
wheat to flour.
I, Pencil
"I, Pencil: My Family Tree as told to Leonard E. Read"
I am a lead pencil—the ordinary wooden pencil familiar to all
boys and girls and adults who can read and write…
Simple? Yet, not a single person on the face of this earth knows
how to make me. This sounds fantastic, doesn't it? Especially
when it is realized that there are about one and one-half
billion of my kind produced in the U.S.A. each year.
Pick me up and look me over. What do you see? Not much
meets the eye—there's some wood, lacquer, the printed
labeling, graphite lead, a bit of metal, and an eraser.
My family tree begins with what in fact is a tree, a cedar of
straight grain that grows in Northern California and Oregon…
The logs are shipped to a mill in San Leandro, California…
http://www.commonsenseeconomics.com/ under Really Cool
Stuff, click Fun Readings to find .pdf and audio of I, Pencil
Merchant of Venice
• Merchant of Venice
William Shakespeare
• Entrepreneurship and
Profits
• The Renaissance was a
time of economic
development. Fortunes
could be made or lost
through shipments from
distant ports…
• http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/titl
e/m/merchant.html
Antonio was a merchant and ship
owner who tried to diversify his
risks. He knew that he
regularly risked losing
everything he owned through
the loss of a large shipment.
However he also finds out that
love and friendship carry risks
and rewards; these could be
harder to bear than loss of
income…
(A quay in Venice, Antonio,
Salerio, and Solanio approach,
talking together)
Wuthering Heights
• Wuthering Heights
Emily Brontë
• Self Interest and
Economic Systems
• We must be for ourselves
in the long run. “Love”
ends when circumstances
cause each one to feel
that one’s interest is not
the chief consideration in
the other’s thoughts.
• http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/titl
e/w/wh.html
Catherine had seasons of gloom
and silence, now and then;
they were respected with
sympathizing silence by her
husband, who ascribed them
to an alteration in her
constitution, produced by her
perilous illness, as she was
never subject to depression of
spirits before. The return of
sunshine was welcomed by
answering sunshine from him. I
believe I may assert that they
were really in possession of
deep and growing happiness.
The Doorbell Rang
Read story: give examples
of scarcity in the story
and life.
• Two children are about to
eat a dozen cookies.
Each time they are about
to eat, the doorbell rings
and the cookies have to
be redistributed.
Beetles Lightly Toasted
• Economic Words: productive
resources, boycott, role of
government, conservation,
scarcity, price productivity
• What good was produced on
Andy’s farm? Milk. Trace the
production of milk: from cow to
your home.
• Use The ReadWriteThink
printing press to create an
advertisement for toasted
beetles
To Market, To Market
Econ-cepts: goods,
services, consumers,
producers, raw materials,
market, productive
resources (natural,
human, capital)
• Create a book activity
about how different
products (i.e. milk) go
from “resource to market”
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
You give the mouse a
cookie. Is the cookie a
good or a service?
The mouse sweeps the
floor. Is he providing a
good or a service?
Bad Kitty
Kitty becomes bad when her
stinky food is replaced
with healthy food.
Food = goods…
What services does she
provide?
http://www.nickbruel.com/
Lemonade for Sale
Econ-cepts: beginning of every
chapter…
http://www.lemonadewar.com/
Lesson: Kid’s Econ Posters
http://www.kidseconposters.com/keb/Title%20List%
20Poster%20Set%20B/Supply%20and%20Deman
d/Lemonade%20for%20Sale.htm
Play the lemonade stand game
http://www.lemonadestandgame.c
om/
Watch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
MUcpCB7Wls8
Island of the Blue Dolphins
Econ-cepts: natural
resources, human
resources, capital
resources, specialization,
scarcity, trade, division of
labor, conservation
Natural Resources and
Scarcity. After you list the
natural resources on the
island, find images &
create digital book.
The Tortilla Factory
Econ-cepts: productive
resources, natural resources,
capital resources, human
resources, human capital,
investment, interdependence.
Use the ReadWriteThink circle
plot diagram
http://www.readwritethink.org/c
lassroom-resources/studentinteractives/circle-plotdiagram-30026.html to trace
the circular flow of resources
For More Info…
http://yumonomics.com
Other Websites
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http://www.bizkids.com
http://www.federalreserveeducation.org
http://commonsenseeconomics.com
http://stosselintheclassroom.org
http://www.councilforeconed.org
http://www.genirevolution.org