In this story Alexander (also known in Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day) is given a dollar from his grandparents. He wastes his money on candy, bets, toys, and even flushes some down the toilet! Alexander then tries to make money instead of spending it. He looks for change in telephone booths, tries to return bottles, and even tries to pull out a tooth in hopes of money from the tooth fairy! None of Alexander's money-making schemes work and in the end he is left with only a deck of cards, a melted candle, a one-eyed bear, and some bus tokens.
This book is ideal for teaching addition and subtraction for second or third grade levels. Before
reading the story ask the students a few introductory questions such as "Have you ever tried to save money?", "How hard
is it to save money?", and "How do you like to spend your money?". Then ask the students to pull out a piece of paper before sharing the book out loud.
While reading the book, stop to figure out how much money Alexander has and have students show their work on paper and on the chalkboard.
You may even want to pass out fake money to the students to demonstate the math.
Follow-up questions for after the book has been read are as follows:
How did Alexander spend his $1.00?
What did he buy and how much did it cost?
If you had a $1.00 to spend, how would you spend it?
How many different ways can you use change to make a $1.00?
How else could Alexander have tried to make money?
A possible activity for this lesson is to have the students create their own story involving money modeled after Alexander, Who Used to Be Rich Last Sunday.
The students can write how they would spend their dollar. Also you may want the students to create story problems and to show the mathwork used to achieve the correct answer.
Students could then share their stories and math problems in groups or partners.
This book can be purchased at Amazon.com
Also check out Elaine Young's Children's Literature in Mathematics Page