Yesterday, my children (along with a buddy) did their very first lemonade stand. I realize that lemonade is just about to go out of season but really, we had been meaning to do it all summer and just never got to it. Everyone over the age of four was involved in the lemonade stand and really, it was a pretty big hit. We sold out all of our ingredients and at the very end had to turn people away. . .and we were only out there for about an hour. The experience though, got me thinking about what a great idea it is to get your kids involved in entrepreneurship.
Giving to Charity
The lemonade stand idea got it’s start when I happened to be searching on the internet and discovered that Sunkist gives away free lemonade stands in exchange for you pledging part of your proceeds to the charity of your choice. The girls (my daughter and her buddy) got this idea that this would be simply brilliant and they could give all their money away to orphans. We talked them into donating to a reputable charity and the girls decided to give a hefty 33% towards sending shoeboxes filled with Christmas gifts to orphanages overseas.
Math Skills
Do you ever study something and think about whether or not they’re really going to use it? No one can argue that making change, making sure you take in more money than you can spend, and even analyzing how much to charge aren’t valuable math skills. They will actually use these skills for the rest of their lives. I’m not even going to delve into the many homeschoolers who chose to fund their college careers through entrepreneurship.
The Big “S” Word
In the course of one hour yesterday these kids repeatedly talked to dozens of strangers. They were required to give a sales pitch, explain what charity they were supporting, answer questions about their product, and even got into convincing their customers to buy more. (One of my children later came up with the idea to offer free pretzels to make customers thirstier!) They also had to speak Spanish (although they did get significant help from me.) Not to mention the fact that this stand was run by five different kids–all of whom worked together and made team decisions.
And what does this have to do with home schooling? This isn’t an opportunity that could be recreated in a classroom. Sure, if they went to school we could do it after school, but I kind of wonder if we would have time considering that they’d all have homework and at least my oldest would likely have some after school activities. Then there’s the timing. . .they were able to set up the stand at 2:30 so they could catch all the people coming home from school.
It’s days like yesterday that make me believe that home schooling provides more than the perfect educational opportunity for my kids.
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