Part 1: Make Lemonade

It's hot outside and what's more refreshing than a glass of lemonade. I am going to share a unit that I taught based around lemonade. I started with finding this TPT from Amy Lemons: Learning with Lemonade and from there the inspiration began. I next saw an article on Mikaila Ulmer, "Help for Honeybees,” and thought what helps lemon trees to grow, that’s right honeybees! Last, that same article inspired me to review a little economics and set up a lemonade stand for my class and from there I planned a week of reading, science, and economics.

PART 1: What are Honeybees and Why are they important to our environment?

I set the stage first with a lemonade stand in front of my classroom for them to become curious about what we might be learning about this week. I got this cute stand from Target in the summer section. 

What insect helps to produce lemonade? HONEYBEES!  As a class made a KWL about what we knew about honeybees and what we would like to know about honeybees.

I next introduced the article by Scholastic News, Help for Honeybees. We read the introduction as a class and discussed our thinking out loud. I then asked my students to draw an image of a honeybee from what they already knew in their science journal. We then finished the article and wrote down the main idea and key details around the bee we drew in our science journal.  We finished this article with a video on Makaila Ulmer (ABC News).

What if there were no honeybees? We discussed what they thought could happen and who would be affected and how this pertained to lemonade. I then read, What If There Were No Bees?  This is a great story about the importance of bees to our ecosystem and how the food chain would be affected if there were no bees.  We added more details to our science journal about why bees are important. 

The math task for the day was Makaila Ulmer’s lemonade display.  Act 1) What do you notice? What do you wonder about?  What questions do you have? They engaged in a think-pair-share and then I wrote their questions down that they had. Act 2) My students decided on the facts, tools, and other information needed to answer the questions from Act 1.  When students decide what they need to solve the problem, they should ask for those things. It is important to the problem-solving process that students decide what is needed without being given the information up front. Students solved the questions and when need I provided guidance.  I added the 3rd question to differentiate for my higher students when they finished the other two questions.  Act 3) Students shared their work and strategies in solving the questions.

We ended our day with the amazing lemonade stand.  I made another KWL about lemonade and what we knew.  We will add to this all week as we learn more about lemonade. 

We discussed the purpose of a lemonade stand and how they can have different purposes such as Alex's Lemonade Stand. We listened to the story Alex and the Amazing Lemonade Stand.  This is a great website with lesson plans, math problems, and science based on a lemonade stand. 

Then I gave them their project for the week. 

We discussed setting up a plan with their team. We first reviewed How to Run a Lemonade Stand. The rest of the afternoon they worked with their team coming up with a logo, slogan, sign, and making a list of things they will need to make their lemonade. 

I hope you enjoyed my first post! 

Leave a comment if you would be interested to see what I did next.