grades k-2 : additional crosstraining activities

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Family Connection: Ask parents to write down the number of teeth the student has lost and send that number in the message pocket to school. This Connection activity and the next three are interrelated.

Mathematics Connection: After information is sent by parents, as described in Family Connection, have students tell how many teeth they have lost. Count, tally, and graph the number of teeth lost and determine the total amount of gift money the class might collect from lost teeth. Older students may use calculators.

Language Arts Connection: Individually or as a group, have students write a paragraph about the number of teeth lost by the entire class.

Community Connection: Invite a dentist to visit the class and talk about how dentists earn income. Have the dentist list the skills and abilities that he or she uses in a productive way. The dentist should make a connection between his or her human capital and the work done in the dentist’s office. Have the dentist talk about the number of teeth students usually lose and why the teeth fall out.

Children’s Literature:

• Bate, Lucy, 1983. Little Rabbit’s Loose Tooth. New York: Crown/Random House, ISBN: 0517551225. Little Rabbit loses a tooth and has to make a choice in order to receive gift money.
• Birdseye, Tom, 1989. Airmail to the Moon. New York: Holiday House, ISBN: 0823407543. Ora Mea considers how much money she can get as gift money. When the tooth she was saving disappears, she sets out to find the thief, only to find the tooth in her pocket.
• Freeman, Don, 1978. Pocket for Corduroy. New York: Puffin Books, ISBN: 0140503528. Upon hearing that his friend, Lisa, has pockets in which she keeps “her precious things,” Corduroy, a toy bear, searches for a pocket for himself in a laundromat.
• Payne, Emmy, 1973. Katy No-Pocket. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, ISBN: 0395137179. Katy, a mother Kangaroo, is upset because she has no pocket in which to carry her son, Freddy. After a search for a pocket, she meets a workman who is covered with pockets. He kindly gives Katy his apron that is full of pockets, and now Katy has more pockets than any other mother kangaroo.

Teacher Resources:

• Hopkins, Martha C., Wright, Donna K.,, and Wood, William C., 1998. Economics and Children's Literature, Supplement 3. St. Louis: SPEC Publishers. This book contains 15 hands-on economics lessons for small children, based on familiar children’s literature. To reinforce concepts taught, use Lesson 13, The Purse.
• The Money Connection, 1997. The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. A two-part video and teacher’s guide that introduces money and banking concepts, and the Federal Reserve System. This video will work better with more mature children.
• Resnick, Abraham, 1995. Money. San Diego: Lucent Books, Inc., ISBN: 1560061650. This book provides background information about money, including its historical development, value, and counterfeiting. The final chapter discusses aspects of the “cashless society,” such as credit cards, checks, automatic teller machines, and modern-day bartering.
• Suiter, Mary C. http://www.mmintl.org/resource/teachers/bears/default.htm. An online lesson in personal finance economics, based on a children’s book called The Berenstain Bears’ Trouble with Money (ISBN: 00-394-85917-0) by Jan and Stan Berenstain. Use this lesson to reinforce the concept of earning income.