I taught The Lemonade War for the first time with a packet.
Twenty-eight pages, stapled, handed out on day one, due the Friday we finished the book. It had everything in it. Vocabulary, comprehension, character work, a final project.
What I got back, two weeks later, was twenty-eight pages filled in on Thursday night.
The answers were not wrong, exactly. They were just thin, the way writing is when somebody is reconstructing a book from memory instead of thinking about a chapter they read an hour ago. And the chapter that had the best conversation in it, the one where Jessie takes Megan's money, had gone by three days earlier without anybody saying a word about it.
I had made the work due at the end of the book, so the thinking happened at the end of the book.
Here is what I changed. One page per chapter, done the same day the chapter is read, does more than any packet at the end, because it catches the thinking while the chapter is still warm.
The Lemonade War by Jacqueline Davies is fourteen short chapters about a brother and sister who spend the last week of summer trying to out-sell each other. It is funny, it is fast, and it is quietly about something much bigger than lemonade. Here is how I teach it now.
1. Set Up the Sibling Problem Before Chapter One
The book opens on Evan already miserable, and if students do not know why, chapter one reads like a boy in a bad mood.
So spend ten minutes before you open the book. Evan is going into fourth grade. His younger sister Jessie is brilliant at school and is about to skip a grade, straight into Evan's class. He found out at the end of the summer. Nobody asked him how he felt about it.
Then ask your class the real question: what would that feel like? Not what would you do, what would it feel like. You will get answers about embarrassment, about being compared, about a little sibling who is good at the one thing you are not.
That ten minutes pays for itself over the next two weeks, because every fight in this book is actually about that, and students who have named the feeling out loud on day one can see it underneath the lemonade.
If you want a hook that costs you ninety seconds, the official book trailer does the job, and it comes straight from the author.
2. Use the Book's Own Business Words as the Vocabulary
This is the thing I wish somebody had told me before my first read-aloud. You do not need to invent a vocabulary list for this novel. Jacqueline Davies already wrote you one.
Every chapter is titled with a business term, and every chapter opens with that term's definition, written plainly enough for a third grader:
- Slump, a drop in the activity of a business
- Joint venture, partnership, competition
- Underselling, location, going global, negotiation
- Malicious mischief, purposely destroying the property of someone else's business
- Total loss, waiting period, crisis management, reconciliation
Fourteen chapters, fourteen words, each one defined by the book on the page where the story is about to demonstrate it. That is a vocabulary sequence most novel units would kill for, and it is free.
The move that makes it stick is to ask, at the end of each chapter, how the chapter earned its title. Chapter ten is called Malicious Mischief. What exactly was destroyed, who did it, and did they know it was wrong while they were doing it? That last part matters, because Jessie's regret arrives after she does it, not before.
3. One Page Per Chapter, Read the Same Day
Fourteen chapters is a two week read at one chapter a day, and the whole argument of this post is that the response goes with the chapter, not at the end of the book.
Keep it to one page and about ten minutes. A couple of comprehension questions to confirm they actually read it, the chapter's vocabulary word in context, and one question that needs an opinion with evidence behind it. That is enough.
Two things happen when the page is same-day. You find out on Tuesday that half the class missed what happened in chapter eight, which you can fix on Wednesday. And the good arguments happen while the chapter is still fresh, instead of being reconstructed a week later from a plot summary.
If you want more on the comprehension strategies underneath this, Reading Rockets has free, research-based guidance that is worth an evening.
4. Seven Ways to Use One Chapter Page
The reason I like a one page per chapter format is that the same page does seven different jobs depending on where you drop it. You are not buying seven things.
- Independent reading accountability. The page is the proof the chapter got read, and it takes you thirty seconds a student to check
- Whole class novel study. Read aloud, then everyone answers, then you discuss the one opinion question together
- Literature circles. The page becomes the ticket into the circle. No page, no seat. The ReadWriteThink guide to starting literature circles pairs with this well and costs nothing
- Small group reading. Pull five students, read the chapter together, do the page out loud as your running record of who is following
- A reading center. Chapter and page in a folder, students rotate through
- Homework. One page is a homework a family can actually help with, which a twenty-eight page packet is not
- Sub plans. The single best use. A substitute can read a chapter aloud and hand out one page without knowing the book at all
The differentiation is free, too. The same page gives a struggling reader the comprehension questions and gives a strong one the written response, and nobody can tell who did which.
5. Extensions That Actually Fit This Book
Most novel extensions could be bolted onto any book. These four only work for this one, which is what makes them worth the time.
- Compare the two businesses with text evidence. Evan sells to people he knows and trusts goodwill. Jessie plans, tracks, and undersells. Have students argue which approach was smarter, using the book's own numbers
- The back matter. After chapter fourteen there is an illustrated spread of Evan and Jessie's business tips and a profit and loss statement. It is a real primary source for the whole unit and most classes never turn the page to find it
- Write the breaking news report. The lemonade war as a newspaper story, which forces students to decide what the main event actually was
- Track one character's change. Evan and Jessie both end the book different from how they started, in opposite directions, and a chart per character makes that visible
And if the money side of the book grabs your class, that is a whole unit on its own. I wrote about it separately in teaching economics with The Lemonade War.
Frequently Asked Questions
What grade is The Lemonade War for? It reads best in third through fifth. Third graders can follow the story and the sibling conflict easily. Fifth graders get more out of the business vocabulary and the moral question at the center of chapter ten.
How long does the novel study take? Two weeks at a chapter a day, plus two or three days for extensions and the final test. Three weeks total is comfortable and leaves room for the business tips spread and a class lemonade stand.
Is there anything to preview before reading it aloud? Chapter ten is the one worth thinking about ahead of time. Jessie deceives her friend Megan and takes her money, and the book does not soften it. That is the best discussion in the novel, but plan how you want to hold it rather than meeting it cold in front of the class.
We homeschool, or I am reading it with my own child. Does this still work? Yes, and the same-day part gets easier with one child. Read the chapter, ask how it earned its title, and ask what each character wanted. Three questions at bedtime does most of what the page does in a classroom.
Do I need to have read the book first? It helps but it is not required if the responses are same-day, because you are reading it with them. Jacqueline Davies publishes her own free teacher's guide as a PDF, which is the fastest way to get oriented, and Book Units Teacher has a generous free chapter breakdown as well.
One More Thing Worth Saying
The reason this book works so well in a classroom is not the lemonade and it is not the business vocabulary, useful as both are.
It is that Evan and Jessie are not really fighting about money. They are fighting because neither one of them will say the true thing out loud, and every reader in your room has been in that exact position with somebody they love.
Ask about that at the end. Not what did they learn about business, but what would have happened if either of them had just said it in chapter two. You will get a better conversation than any comprehension question can buy.
If You Would Rather Not Build It From Scratch
Everything above works with a copy of the book and a notebook. If you would rather have the fourteen pages already written, here is the version I use.
The Lemonade War Novel Study is one quick check for every one of the fourteen chapters, each with comprehension questions, the chapter's own vocabulary, and a written response. Around them sit the extensions from part five: character change charts for Evan and Jessie, a story setting map, a compare-the-businesses page using text evidence, a context clues hunt, a claims and evidence writing activity, a breaking news book report, and a final book test. Answer keys throughout, and every page works on its own, so you can use all of it or pull the four pages you actually want.
Please note that a copy of The Lemonade War by Jacqueline Davies is required and is not included. This is an independent companion resource and is not affiliated with the author or publisher.
Keep Going
Teaching economics with The Lemonade War, for the money and business half of this book.
8 fun ways to practice the parts of speech, for the grammar you are fitting in around the novel.
