A few weeks ago my daughters and one of their friends had a lemonade stand as part of our neighborhood-wide yard sale. The day before that I Tweeted that I had to give a little economics lesson to my kids because we had spent $15 on supplies and they wanted to charge only 25 cents for a large cup of lemonade. 

My daughters and their friend are five and six years old. The lesson I gave them was a very brief and basic one. But that did remind me that EconEdLink offers a more in-depth lesson plan built around hosting a lemonade stand. 

Lemon Squeeze – The Lemonade Stand is a free economics lesson plan designed for use with elementary school and middle school students. The lesson plan uses the backdrop of hosting a lemonade stand to help students learn about supply and demand, pricing, and a little bit about lemons themselves. The resources for teachers who use this lesson plan include tally charts for students to complete, a script for a little play about lemonade stands, and even a recipe for making lemonade from scratch. 

On a related note, five years ago Fast Company produced this video in which they interviewed the “CEOs” of lemonade stands. It’s a cute and insightful video that is well worth four minutes of your time.