When I think of summer when I was a kid I remember planning and setting up MANY lemonade stands. My other memory of lemonade stands is pure disappointment. The truth of the matter is, I only had so many neighbors, relatives, and friends that could buy lemonade and after they had visited it got a little boring. I loved setting up the stand with signs and making the lemonade (that is what the fun is really all about), but I never made any money and there was always a LOT of waiting. When I was remembering lemonade stands from my childhood I tried to think of a way to make lemonade stands more fun for my kids and I decided that some simple pretend play would be best. I was right! We set up a lemonade stand in our backyard and played and played this afternoon. I know that the boys will be asking to do this again this weekend.
First, we set up our stand with signs, cups, straws, a bank, and ice. We also filled up a pitcher and a drink canister with "lemonade."
Our"lemonade" was made with water and food coloring. We started with just yellow, but my three year old ordered pink lemonade, so we filled up a pitcher with pink water!
The boys took turns taking orders and dropping money in the bank. Our bank was made of metal so it was fun to hear the clink of the coins as they were dropped.
I loved that the "lemonade" didn't leave a sticky mess and if the boys spilled it didn't matter at all! The best part...the bees stayed away.
My six year old practiced some math using the lemonade stand sales sheet that I found at Target. Later on he started giving his lemonade away for free. He got this idea from the book, A Dollar for Penny.
My three year old loved taking orders and filling them.
He got good practice with pouring while we played.
They were both excited to take orders from Daddy when he got home!
Before we played we read a couple of lemonade books. My six year old got a lot of inspiration from both books since this was the first time he ever set up a lemonade stand.
The first book we read was Lemonade Stand by Marcia Vaughn and illustrated by Tom Payne. This book is from the All Aboard Reading series and is great for new readers! In this story, a bear named Boomer and a mouse named Squeak set up a lemonade stand. They plan on getting rich from their lemonade stand! As they wait and wait for customers they end up buying their own lemonade from each other. They try to "advertise" their lemonade stand by marching around the neighborhood with their lemonade sign, but they are not successful. When they realize that they are out of lemonade, they run to the store to buy one glass of lemonade to share with each other.
I wasn't quite sure how much of this story my son would understand, but he laughed through the whole thing. He clearly understood how funny it was that they were buying and drinking their own lemonade. I loved hearing my six year old laugh as we read. The older he gets, the harder it is to make him laugh!
Be sure to check out our other lemonade posts.
This is SO clever! I would have never thought to just pretend to have a lemonade stand. My oldest had an actual lemonade stand a few months ago while I was having a garage sale and she loved it. Combine that memory with reading a book and she would be all over this pretend play!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for joining the outdoor play party.