Monday Math Literature Volume 50

Hi all!  If you missed last week's post (and freebie) about using The Napping House in math class, you can check it out here!

This week, I want to share with you a great book that I discovered this past school year and a little activity I did with it to help my kids with adding and subtracting money.  I have been very inspired by the Math and Literature series and came up with a way to use this great story in math class

The Princess and the Pizza 

The Princess and the Pizza tells the story of Paulina, a former princess whose father gave up being king to be a wood carver.  Since he is new to wood carving, he doesn't make a lot of money and Paulina misses the life she had as a princess. When she hears prince Drupert is looking for a wife, she heads to the castle to show off her best princess skills.  Many other princesses also arrive to compete with Paulina to be Drupert's wife.  Paulina makes it to the final part of the competition where she has to create a meal and accidentally invents pizza to win the competition.  She wins but decides to open her own pizza place instead of becoming Drupert's wife.  The story ends with Paulina's Pizza place becoming a huge success!

I read this book to my fourth graders this year during our decimal and money unit.  I made a simple menu using some of the pizza combinations mentioned in the book and a few my students came up with.  We also put a few drinks and desserts on the menu.  The kids got to work with a partner to choose what they would order from Princess Paulina's Pizza Palace.  Their budget was $20.  They had to answer three questions

1. What would you order?

2. What would be the total cost?

3.  How much change would you get if you paid with a $20 bill.  

The kids did a great job with this and used some great thinking strategies for adding and subtracting money.  I love to hear kids talk about different strategies and build their own understanding of adding and subtracting money.  I also love when they use estimation and mental math to solve these types of problems.  This is the type of real world math I want to make sure my students can do!  

Want to try this with your students?  You can grab our little pizza menu for free from Google drive.