In honor of my kids starting school this week, I thought I’d share our last big summer hurrah—the lemonade stand. Trenton has been talking about doing this all summer. (Slowly wearing us down? 😉 And since I always wanted to do one as a kid, we penciled it in for the last weekend of summer.
Above: There they are sampling the merchandise. Quality control, people!
We picked lemons from a friend’s tree, and the boys juiced every single one. They cut out the words I printed for the sign and taped them onto the poster board. They helped me make the Nutella brownies and helped their dad haul the table and chairs to the nearby shopping plaza. They even did their hair and wore “nice shirts” in hopes that their cute faces would sell more lemonade. 🙂
After devoting practically two whole days to this gig, I wanted to share what we learned…so you’ll know what you’re getting into when you pull out your red checked tablecloth and buckets of lemons. 🙂
4 Things We Learned from Our First Lemonade Stand
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In the future, when I see kids selling something, I will scrounge up whatever cash I can and buy something!! I felt so much gratitude to the people who supported our boys by buying a cup of lemonade or a brownie. To kids, it is SO MUCH MORE than a cup of lemonade.
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A lemonade stand happens to be the perfect early introduction to sales and people skills. They played around with what to say and how to say it to get people to stop on their way into the grocery store.
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I’m pretty sure we spent as much as we made. 🙂 But the boys were pretty darn happy with their 25 bucks!
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It was a fantastic way to give the boys a chance to WORK. As a parent, I want to always have my eyes wide open for those opportunities for them. I remember watering my elderly neighbor’s flowers and checking her mail, for a bit of money, when I was a kid—and then doing some cleaning for her when I was older. I see so much more value in that now than I did then. Now I can see that it taught me to show up when I said I would and to follow through with my commitments. As my neighbor (and her cat) followed me around telling me about her grandchildren, I learned to listen—and to see what life would be like in someone else’s shoes. Kids need those lessons, and I’m excited to help my kids find them wherever they can, starting with their first lemonade stand. 🙂
Just for some Thursday fun – What chances did you have to work as a kid and teenager? Cleaning your dad’s office? Babysitting? I want to keep any ideas in mind for the future!
Btw, don’t forget to enter the giveaway for $50 in beautiful polaroid prints by signing up for my new quarterly (ish) newsletter. You won’t regret it!
My father, a pastor, paid me to alphabetize and organize his large collection of books at his office one summer. I felt like a librarian! I earned money babysitting, doing extra home chores and by high school worked as a waitress and sales clerk. My children have chores for income and my oldest (age 10) earns a bit extra doing yard work.
That’s awesome, Missy. I think it’s so important to give kids an introduction to work – and starting young. I love the idea of organizing a collection of books. Thanks!
I did a lemonade stand when I was little, we were not near as successful as you were, it was slow where we had our stand and we started to float someones shoe down the ditch and we lost it. I also recall trying to sell homemade bracelets I had braided, that was also very unsuccessful.
That’s awesome, Sarah. Especially about the friendship bracelets. We learn as much from our failures as our successes, right? 🙂 Your parents let Ryan use his savings to buy about a million glow sticks to sell at the fair. He still has glow sticks left. 🙂 Love it!
This is the cutest! I wish I could have been there to see them and buy something. The only thing I remember doing to work as a kid was babysitting, but I have a bad memory! I admire that Chad was always working as a kid–helping his Dad with home renovating projects, mowing the lawn, church projects, working the summers in Idaho, etc. He has a great work ethic (and is very handy too!) thanks to his parents and I hope he will help me instill that in our kids! It really is very important.
Oh man, I really admire that about Chad too and about his parents’ parenting. Your comment makes me want to think hard about how to give our kids chances to learn those kind of skills. Love you!
This is the cutest lemonade stand I have ever seen! I bet the lemonade and brownies were delicious. I think that doing work as a kid is so important. I think that kids have way too many things handed to them on silver platters. I cleaned my dad’s office when I was a kid and I hope to find things that my kids can consistently do for work while growing up. Nice job on the lemonade stand (I’m sure it took a lot of work on your end as well!)
So cute and fun! I had a neighborhood babysitting business. I started as a mother’s helper at age 10 and progressed to a babysitter at 13. I babysat most weekends until I was 18 and went off to college. I also worked as an assistant apparel rep at the Mart in Atlanta and would detail my parents cars for a few extra bucks as well 🙂
You go girl! That’s awesome that you did so much! I hope to raise kids like that!