The children, who are quite mercenary little creatures at the best of times, were driven to many new heights of enterprise during this Economics and Money Unit. I always try to discourage them from doing Lemonade Stands and so forth, mostly because it makes ME uncomfortable (I'm always afraid they'll annoy people, or that people will stop and buy something just to be nice but be sort of annoyed at the same time. Ha.) and because I never think they'll be very successful and I want to quash their little dreams early so as to prevent future disappointment. And I think, the thousands of children's books using Lemonade Stands as symbols of "Entrepreneurship" to the contrary, that children's lemonade stands don't actually add that much value to society. It's funny, because when I see OTHER children at lemonade stands I think it's darling and I even make a point of stopping at them when possible, but it's still something I sort of groan at whenever my children want to do it.
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| What value does this kitchen scale add to the world? |
(Speaking of adding value, Sam actually taught a whole lesson about it during this unit. It's something he always tells his college classes about. He talked about adding value to the world, and how to do it [and how even if YOU think you ARE doing it just by existing or "creating," it's really determined by whether or not others WANT your goods or services. And he talked about different types of value, of course—our intrinsic value as children of God doesn't change].)
Well, in spite of this wet-blanket-ness on my part, the children have sold things at "stands" before and probably will again. And this latest effort was a rock stand selling various
rocks we have found or bought and polished. And I suppose the polished rocks actually are something the children added value to by polishing, so that's good. Though I didn't know if there would be much of a market for them. This Rock Stand was a multi-day effort and the children actually made a little bit of money! So they were thrilled.
The kids were very conscientious about marketing. They made many signs, and walked up and down the street yelling and ringing a bell. It probably drove our sainted neighbors crazy. I tried not to let it go on too long or too frequently.
I loved Malachi's sign. Good thing we have so many "raer" rocks for sale.
Sweet Daisy made the cutest little Activity Books with dot-to-dots and coloring pages and other fun things. They were so darling and she said, "My target audience is something like two- or three-year-olds." I said, "That's good, but your target audience doesn't have any money!" She said, "Well, their big brothers and sisters could buy them for them." Unfortunately, there were no big brothers or sisters of adequate generosity around, so she didn't sell any books. It was a little sad (and that's another reason I don't like it when my kids sell things). But, Daisy wasn't too disturbed by it. She had fun making them anyway!
