Lemonade Stands: Teaching Kids about Food and Business

This weekend Keanna ran her first lemonade stand!!  While a few friends, my mom, and I held a yard sale, Keanna tempted our shoppers with ice-cold fresh-squeezed lemonade.  Fortunately for her, it was in the mid-90's that day!

In honor of her first entrepreneurial success, I thought I'd revisit my lemonade recipe that I posted last summer and include some tips for running a lemonade stand.

Lemonade

1½ c. lemon juice

6 c. water

1¼-1⅓ c. sugar

Combine all ingredients in a 2-quart pitcher and mix until sugar is dissolved.  Serve chilled or iced.  Yield 2 quarts.  Total cost (if you have a lemon tree):  almost FREE!!

Tips for running a successful lemonade stand:

• When deciding how much to charge, don't just take cost and profit into consideration.  Think about the mathematical ability of the child running the stand.  Keanna is still trying to grasp money so we charged $0.50 for a 16-oz. cup of lemonade.  This way she only had to deal in multiples of 50's, or two quarters.  For some extra money lessons, I took some of our yard sale money and traded her coins for some bills so she would see that coins add up to bills.
• Have your child help make the lemonade and take the opportunity to teach about fractions.
• Put the lemonade in a glass or clear plastic pitcher so people can see it.  More people will be willing to buy it if they can see it first.
• To increase your profit margin, you can put ice in the cups when serving the lemonade.  We didn't do this.
• Have your child make the sign--it's cute and will get peoples' attention.  Be sure to help them make it large enough for people to see and read easily.
• To keep your lemonade cold without watering it down, use lemonade ice cubes instead of regular ice. A few days before, start freezing lemonade in ice trays.  Once frozen solid, transfer the cubes to gallon zip-top bags until they are needed.

For tips on juicing lemons and making lemonade, see the original post here.  Also try making strawberry lemonade and blended lemonade, both posts available here.