The following Internet sites may be useful in expanding and enhancing the interdisciplinary value of this lesson:.Video of the movie from 1996 Part One (58 mins) Part Two (32 mins) Story-time version of the book on YouTube Student access to Lyddie: If you are not already reading the book, students can watch or listen at these sites:.The final activity involves a worksheet that calls upon students to assist a character who needs to evaluate his income against his expenditures to determine how he might meet his financial goals.

Finally, they will use mathematical skills to complete an activity in which they calculate income and expenses in a simulated effort to help someone reach financial goals.Īfter reading/watching the novel, the students will explore economic concepts by discussing answers to questions the lesson poses.

By visiting Internet sites, they will also learn about child labor practices, the growth of government regulation and labor unions, and other aspects of the world in which Lyddie lived, worked, and dreamed. To pursue her dream, she takes a job in the cotton mills of Lowell, Massachusettes.Īs the students discuss this story, they will learn how Lyddie’s life is affected by circumstances we can describe by modern economic concepts such as scarcity, opportunity cost, incentives, saving, and interest. In response to these events, Lyddie dreams of reuniting her family. Her unstable mother and her father leave home, and she and her brother are hired out to help pay off the family’s debts. This frightening event precipitates the breakup of Lyddie’s family. The story begins when a huge bear enters Lyddie’s family’s cabin.

She tries in vain to earn and save enough money to reunite her family. Lyddie Worthen, the main character, is employed in the mill. In reading/watching and discussing Lyddie, the students travel in time to an 1840s textile mill in Lowell, Massachusetts.

Lyddie full book