Teacher notes
The Lemonade War is a book about siblings, and it's also a book about money. This unit uses both: students check the characters' math, score lemonade-stand strategies and can plan a real stand with a budget and profit per cup. The teacher guide links it to the Financial Literacy strand of Ontario Math, so one novel covers two subjects.
Quick answers
What grades? Grades 3–6. It's a strong Grade 4 read-aloud.
Does it use Canadian money? The book uses U.S. dollars, and a Know Before You Go page explains this.
Priced in Canadian dollars, so it costs less here than the US-dollar price on TPT. Instant download after checkout.
Full details
Evan Treski is about to start Grade 4 when a letter arrives: his little sister Jessie, who is skipping a grade, will be in his class. Evan is not happy. A lemonade stand turns into a bet, the bet turns into a war, and by Sunday night both kids find out what winning really costs. This Lemonade War novel study never asks students "what happened?" Every prompt asks what it means, why Evan and Jessie do what they do, how Jacqueline Davies told it, and what students think. The unit follows the book in six parts, each named for something from the Treskis' hot week: The Letter, The Bet, Ten Cents, The Comment Card, The Fruit Flies and The Fireworks. Each part has a menu of prompts, a hands-on activity, and trackers. The trackers keep a running ledger of every dollar both kids earn, follow what each storyteller gets right and misses (the chapters switch between Evan and Jessie), log the words that sting, decode the business-word chapter titles, and test who in the book is a real friend. The book is full of real math, and so is the study: students check Evan's 14 × 50 and 53 ÷ 3, redo Jessie's profit-margin page, score each lemonade strategy like a business owner, and can plan a real stand for a cause. The teacher guide links it all to Ontario Language (2023) and to the Math curriculum's Financial Literacy strand. WHAT'S INCLUDED (59 pages, letter size) Student booklet (45 pages) • 6 part menus with 36 prompts (6 per part). Students pick two per part from five lenses: Inside Scoop, Switch Sides, Take a Stand, Secret Recipe and Do the Math. • 6 hands-on activities everyone does: Said vs. Thought, The Fine Print (write the bet as a contract, then find what's unfair), Stand Showdown (score four lemonade strategies), Comment Cards, Getting Even? (rank the chain of wrongs on a wrong-o-meter) and Balance the Books. • 5 trackers: The Ledger (money), Blind Spots (point of view), Sting Words (words + feelings), Double Meanings (the business-word chapter titles) and Real Friends (with a brother + sister meter). • Pre-reading hook, Know Before You Go (Labor Day, Grade 4, U.S. dollars), and an anticipation guide with a sealed prediction. • Organizers: Squeeze It (claim, evidence, so what), Chain Reaction, Two Sides, Iceberg, and a relationship web. • Socratic seminar prep with 9 big questions and a moves tracker. • 6 final project choices: Lemons into Loot (a "Ten Tips" poster), Plan a Stand (budget, price, profit per cup, sign), The Missing Chapter, Two Voices, Ask a Seller (an interview) and The Commercial. • 6 profile pages, 5 toolkit templates (debate builder, craft spotter, two-voice poem, storyboard, stand + interview planners) and a 24-word vocabulary page (12 business words, 12 story words). • 6 exit tickets, a project planner, a single-point rubric and two Level 1–4 rubrics. Teacher guide (14 pages) • Visual implementation map: the whole unit on one page, week by week • Start-here checklist, unit map, and a 7-week plan (3-week option included) • Teaching with care: content notes by part, do's and don'ts, and a 24/7 support line • Background notes, including a real Canadian lemonade-stand shutdown (Ottawa, 2016) • Full story key, plus how the ending is planted • Look-fors for all 36 prompts and 6 activities, with extension prompts • Tracker and vocabulary keys, and a parent letter • Ontario Language (2023) curriculum links, assessment plan, and Math connections WHY TEACHERS LIKE IT • No recall questions, so students can't answer by skimming. • The same routine every part: read, activity, two prompts, trackers, exit ticket. • Real-life money math built in, so students who think in numbers have a way in. • Made with care: no acting out the fight, and no student is asked to share their family's story or money. • A one-page implementation map shows the whole unit at a glance. • Every page number is a clickable link in the PDF, so it works on paper or on screen. • White pages, designed to photocopy in black and white. PLEASE NOTE Students need their own copy of The Lemonade War by Jacqueline Davies (Houghton Mifflin, 2007). References use chapter numbers and short quotes, not page numbers, so any edition works. The teacher guide flags sensitive content by part (hurtful words between siblings, a father who has left, a bullying memory, money taken and lost, a physical fight). All illustrations are original. This is an independent teaching resource and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the author, the illustrator or the publisher.
