The Lemonade Stand

The lazy days of summer are in full swing. It has been a fun summer this far, traveling across the province doing all the fun and free things we can! But when we are homebound for a few days, one thing that my daughter always seems to enjoy doing is running a lemonade stand. This is just a classic, timeless tradition that screams summer to me! If you aren’t into lemonade, freezies are also fun to sell, as well as baked goods, toys a la garage sale and of course, random assortments of handmade crafts.

This is something you can ‘squeeze’ in (get it?) just before summer is over and has the potential to be a core memory. You can run it with a couple of neighbourhood kids, you can rope your cousins into it or be a solo entrepreneur. It is best to tack on the stand to an existing garage sale to maximize your foot traffic. This activity does require significant preparation beforehand and a bit of a financial investment from a parental donor, but it is a wonderful way to foster many skills in your child. Here are a few: 

Responsibility and Commitment
To effectively run your own lemonade stand, you need to commit to sitting outside for at least an hour. With a shortened childlike attention span, this can be a difficult task, but you can’t sell to friends if you aren’t physically there to do it. 

Money Math
With friends shopping with their assortment of piggy bank and Tooth Fairy money, you need to establish a price list and then practice accepting payment and offering change. This is a great way to foster money math skill development. It is also an opportunity to practice spending your money on reasonable things and saving your money, too. 

Marketing and Sales
My daughter requested I make a poster on Canva with a price list. I kid you not. So, I was happy to comply. But then I prompted her about how she was going to get the word out to the neighbourhood kids. She said I should post on Facebook. Oh, what a time to be alive. But sure enough, with a photo in a neighborhood group, her friend’s parents saw and they all seemed to bike, scoot and wagon on by with their piggy bank change in tow. Marketing in the new age, I tell ya!

Creativity
At our most recent lemonade stand effort, my daughter and her cousins made little buttons to sell alongside cookies, freezies, and lemonade. These were all their ideas, and I tried my best to support their dreams, including purchasing lemon shaped napkins from the dollar store to create the aesthetic. While these weren’t exactly my dreams, I really tried my best to follow their lead and help make their stand a success. 

Generosity and Gratefulness
When your friend doesn’t have quite enough coins to match your price list, you can graciously offer them a cup anyway. When you recruit your cousins into manning your stand for a little bit, you should compensate them accordingly- either with your profits or your leftover cookies. And when your mom is panic buying lemons because she forgot about the lemonade stand plans the next day, it’s important to extend your thanks to her for supporting your small business. These are small examples of attributes that can positively shape your child’s skill development and mold them into a decent human being. 

So when life gives you lemons, you can make lemonade. You can also plan for a lemonade stand experience, teaching your kids many life lessons while sipping on some delicious juice. 

Did your little one run their own stand this summer? Send us your photos! We would love to see!