Our Lesson Plan:
Created By: Andrea Ternullo, Donna Santabarbara, Hannah Hood
Unit Topic: Money management
Grade: 4
Lesson Topic: Using a computer game students will learn about money
management
Lesson Objective: Students will be able to describe the process that
is needed in order to make a profit while playing the game Coffee
Shop.
Instructional Techniques: Students will create groups of three or
four to work in to complete the in class activity. When the entire
class has finished we will have a class discussion about the
activity and how much money the students made and lost while
creating their own coffee shop.
Instructional Materials: Worksheet handout, computer, website
coolmathgames.com coffee shop game, http://www.coolmath-games.com/0-coffee-shop
Theoretical Perspective: This lesson is important for the students
to learn because it will help them understand what it takes to make
a profit when creating a business. It will also show them that there
are different variables that make an influence in creating a
business.
Procedure:
In order for the Coffee Shop activity to work in our fourth grade
class we are first going to begin by having a mini lesson with the
students demonstrating how the game works along with the worksheet
they will use during the lesson. The teacher will hand them
the worksheet they will be using and the students will remain at
their seats while the teacher goes over to the computer and pulls up
the Coffee shop game on the classroom computer by going on
coolmathgames.com and searching coffee shop. The teacher will then
put the game on the smartboard for the entire class to see. Once the
game is up on the Smart Board the teacher will go over the
instructions with the class on how to use the website. The teacher
will first show the class that once the game loads to the computer
the students need to click the start button where they will be
directed to another screen and they will be asked to name their
coffee shop. Once the students name their coffee shop they will
click the play button. The teacher will show them how they can
change their recipe for the coffee and where to record all the
necessary information on the worksheet they have for their
evaluation. The teacher will show them where to find the
weather, the day they are on, and their money before and after each
day on the screen. The teacher will show the students where to
record this information on the worksheet. If all of the
children understand and no one has any questions then they should be
ready to be starting their first day of their business. The
teacher has a sheet with the groups already assigned attached so
gather the children in those pairs/groups. Once there they are
going to need to go back to their handout and record the
temperature, how much money they started with, cups bought, milk
bought, sugar bought (all of this information will be on the
computer screen). They will then create a coffee recipe online and
record the recipe that each cup is going to be made on their
handout along with how strong/weak the coffee taste is, if the
milk is creamy/black, if the sugar is bitter/sweet and how much each
cup of coffee costs. (The students need to record information each
day as their money and recipe may change) The students will then
play the first day of the game and write down how they felt they did
along with how much money they ended with, reputation, cups sold,
and the price of coffee. This process will continue to be repeated
until the students either make a profit all the way until day 14
when the games ends, or they will be asked to restart if they go
bankrupt before day seven. When they finish playing students are
required to go to the last page of the packet where they will
describe why they made a profit and how they did it. Once the entire
class finishes the class will come back together as a whole where we
will discuss why some groups went bankrupt, why other groups were
successful and how, and how this game helped their understanding of
money management. One of our adaptations are teachers can assign
groups in order to create the highest level of learning. If we know
some students have trouble with math we can put them in groups with
students who have strong math abilities. Also, if some students have
trouble with reading compression we can put them in groups with high
reading compression in order for them to be most successful.
Evaluation: We will know if we met our objective when the
class finishes playing the Coffee shop game and each group fills out
their self evaluation sheet which can be found in the handout. On
the self evaluation the students are asked to write about what
things could they have done better, well, and if they went bankrupt
why it occurred or what they would have changed. Our class objective
was: Students will be able to describe the process that is needed in
order to make a profit while playing the game Coffee Shop.
This self evaluation is where the student will prove that the have
met the class objective.