A Parent's How-to Guide to Successful Kid-Created Businesses

What is summer without a nice refreshing glass of lemonade?  Whether it's mixed too sweet, a bit too tart, or made just right, people just can't get through the hot days without it.  Help your kids capitalize on this craving—literally. 

A lemonade, watermelon juice, or water stand is a fun summer activity that will teach your child a whole host of important skills, while getting them out of the house.  This summer learning activity is all about math, and depending on the relative skill level of your child, you will have to guide them through the different activities associated with each step of the process. 

1. Recipes for Ratios:  Help your child learn their fractions by having them follow a lemonade recipe.  Younger learners can help with measuring ingredients, and you can talk to them about basic math associated with ratios. Older learners can be challenged by converting the ratios in a recipe in order to make more servings of lemonade. You can brush up on your own ratios skills here, before you tackle teaching your child.  Remember that the more you actually talk about how ratios work, the more they will learn.  The amount of specific instruction you give them will make all the difference in their learning. 

2. Turning math into money:  Your child will be able to learn the true value of an education, as you teach them to identify different denominations of money, make change, and add up their profits.  Younger learners will benefit from manipulatable learning tools - any toy store worth its salt will have some play money for your child to practice identifying currency and making change.  Some even have toy cash registers!  Older learners should be challenged to keep a balance book of their sales, much like your own checkbook register, where they can practice keeping running totals, and at the end of the day compare the profits they made with any startup costs.  Then, they can devise a plan for making the cost to profit ratio better.  Older learners will also benefit from some mathematical pre-inplanning by adding up startup costs and figuring out the number of drinks they would need to sell and at what price, in order to make a profit.

3. Don't borrow sugar, sell it:  Lemonade stands are a great way for your child to make friends, learn neighbor's names, and improve their social skills overall.  Before your kids go out, talk to them about how to initiate a sale, how to introduce themselves, and their fledgling business.   Encourage your child to come up with a plan for how they will use their profits (for a new toy or even a local charity!) and tell them to share that goal with their customers.  Encourage your child to dress for their event, by looking fresh and professional.  Your childs' beverage stand is also a great activity for them to do with their siblings and friends.

4.  Making a stand:  Every business needs advertising, even your child's refreshment stand.  This part of the activity can be a great way for kids to get the creative lemonade flowing.  Your child can draw, paint, collage, sew, or build their lemonade stand.  They can use the home computer to print advertisements to hang on poles, or put in neighbors' mailboxes.  They can create a business name, logo, or slogan to put on signs.  They can even make their beverages unique with a little food coloring, or Kool Aid - purple lemonade, anyone?  Don't forget to have clearly posted prices and sizes!

Younger Learners:  For our little lemons, I recommend that this activity is heavily supervised, or done with an older sibling.  Younger learners can practice making signs, setting prices, giving change, and learn basic recipe skills.  This stand should be close to home, if not right on the front lawn.  Keep the activity short, an hour or two at most spread out over a couple of days, or your child will become bored and you'll end up drinking that lemonade they made for the next month.

Older Learners:  Teens can venture out on their own a little more, so setting up shop at a Camp Pendleton event, or selling water from a rolling cooler at Oceanside beach will amp up the difficulty level, and the profits.  Challenge them to create a business plan: including pricing the lemonade to make a profit, or a marketing plan with theme colors, names and logos that are coordinated.  Older learners should convert a recipe's amouts to yield more servings, and practice keeping a balance book, or receipt book. 

English learners:  The social interaction that comes with selling can be a great way for those learning English to become confident speakers.  Look up and practice specific vocabulary that they might need ahead of time, such as recipe terms or money and selling words.  They can also create picture signs, such as large glasses, small glasses, pictures of money to represent the cost (three quarters to model a cost of 75 cents), that they can point to if conversation becomes difficult.

Learning Disabled:  This activity is great for the traditionally introverted or shy disabled learner.  I would recommend this activity is done with an older sibling or friend, or with a parent.  Challenge them to be a part of all of the steps of this activity, but you might not want to expect them to continuously handle all sales or setup.  Overall, encourage them to be social and to interact with their customers, even if it means you're doing the real work.

Other Considerations:  It can always be a little scary to have your children interact with strangers, so for their peace of mind as well as your own, I would supervise this activity heavily. But remember that this is their buisness, and they should take the reigns in interacting with their customers. 

Also, every neighborhood may have different rules on what type of structures may be built and how sales can be conducted.  If you are building an actual stand, I recommend doing so on your own property.  Otherwise, a rolling cooler may be more appropriate.  Never set up shop in front of a store or in a parking lot without permission first.  If you live on base, or are not sure of your communities' rules about selling, ask customers to make a recommended donation, or run your stand to benefit a charity. 

Local Resources:

For inspiration on a lemonade stand for charity, visit Abby's Lemonade Stand in Oceanside on July 26th to support the fight against childhood cancer. July 26th, Melba Bishop Recreation Center.  By donation. 

Your children can become directly involved by signing up to with this Oceanside lemonade stand project. 

For older children, have them contact the US Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command about selling water for spectators at the upcoming Sprint Triathlon.  Saturday Aug 6, ACU -5 Camp Pendleton, Free to spectators.