Smart

In this poem, a little boy thinks he is making a lot of good trades with the dollar that his father gave him.  He first trades his dollar for two shiny quarters because he thinks two is for sure more than one.  He does not understand the value that his dollar has and has unknowingly made a bad trade.  He continues to make trades until he is down to only having five pennies!  Needless to say his father was not very happy with him when he saw that he made very bad trades.  An activity that I thought you could do with your class that goes along with this poem is one that I saw on the website TeacherTube.com.  This is an example of the children in this classroom acting out this poem just to show how the trades the little boy was making were simply silly Smart Poem Play.  If you have a younger classroom you could take the time out to have a math lesson explaining the value of money.  They may not get it right away but they will soon see that the boy in this poem was making the wrong trades all along.