Henry’s Lemonade Stand: 4 1/2 Years-Old

What fun! Henry had the idea to plan a lemonade stand. He used his moveable alphabet to write a letter to his teacher to invite her on a Saturday. Then he juiced most of the lemons using our electric juicer. Unfortunately we only had a dark natural sugar, so it ended up looking like a dehydrated urine sample. Oh, well!

We found a nice shady spot and got to work waving at all the cars that passed by. We met several new neighbors, and even sold lemonade to a family from our school who just happened to be driving by. Henry took the orders, filled the glasses with ice, and worked the dispenser. (I had to teach him not to drink out of the glass when it got too full.) 

In total, Henry made about $18. He set the price at $1/cup (I talked him out of $10/cup). He said he wanted to earn money for a gumball machine, a motorbike, college, and homeless people. 

We had fun counting his money afterwards (just one-to-one correspondence, not actually counting the denominations of coins) and then he divided it up into his money jars according to the sticker system that we use: 1 part for charity, 3 parts for a car, 2 parts for college, and 3 parts for saving up for a toy. 

It was a such a fun glimpse into what is going to come! I’m an elementary teacher at heart–infants and toddlers are hard, hard, hard.