One of Kamy’s recent concerns is income. Or more specifically, money she can spend on what she wants. SO, we figured we would take advantage of living near a busy summer camp and have the kids set up a lemonade stand! It started out as Kamy’s project, but Caden became interested as well and helped run the stand too. I gave Kamy $20 to buy supplies — lemon juice, sugar, cups, and ice. The first $20 she made at the stand had to go to pay me back, and then they could keep any income. Kamy then used the money they made to buy more supplies as needed. They were off to the races! One of the benefits of the summer camp is there is a different round of parents every week, so you constantly have new customers who may stop by. Drop off is Sunday afternoon and pick up is Saturday morning. The odds were even better when we were set up for both days since they saw us on Sunday and were more likely to bring cash or stop by on Saturday too. It took some experimenting to figure out what the best times were and how long it was worth it to stay out in the sun. In general, sales were pretty consistent across the days and weekends, but there tended to be more generous tips on Saturday morning. On average, they received $25-30 each day they were set up and spent about $6 on supplies. That’s a great return on investment for two hours of work! The kids mostly split the income 50-50 and Caden helped buy some of the supplies as they needed replenishing.
The lemonade stand was a great learning experience — working on eye contact, serving customers, speaking clearly, and smiling and waving at the cars driving by. We talked about income and dividing the money, saving to buy more supplies, understanding and appreciating tipping. They even had the volunteer fire department stop by and purchase some lemonade. We took the chance to “pay it forward” as well and gave them free refills as a “thank you” for serving our community.
Kamy has been talking about wanting a gold dress since her birthday, so finding the money to buy one was really the root of her interest in the lemonade stand. She bought a gold sequin dress and matching gold shoes with her income this month. I was very impressed — we were looking online and I showed her several options to choose from. She intentionally chose the one she wanted most, despite it shipping from China and estimating delivery 3-4 weeks later. It didn’t matter, she knew the one she wanted and she was willing to wait for it. I was very proud of her! The dress itself was really cheap and isn’t holding up well, but that’s another learning experience in itself and Kamy still loves the dress! (Kamy is wearing the gold dress in the second to last photo below).
We have a plum tree in the front yard that was very prolific this summer. The kids LOVED eating the plums and would go out and eat some at least twice a day. They weren’t afraid to eat the ones that had fallen in the grass either, those were easier to get anyway! Both kids ate their weight in plums in June!
Speaking of fruit, the kids and I checked out a new blueberry u-pick field. Picking berries has become a tradition at the 4th of July, so we needed to scope out a new location before we brought everyone out there. We went to Echo Springs Blueberry Farm in Chandler, about 20 minutes from our house. They had a TON of bushes that were loaded with berries. One variety in particular was our favorite and we picked a bunch to take home. We ate a lot of them fresh, we froze a bunch for muffins and pancakes throughout the year, and we made blueberry jam!
Kamy loves gymnastics! Since dance doesn’t run over the summer, she wanted to try out gymnastics. She is enrolled in the beginners class and is having a lot of fun. She does such a great job listening to the coaches and trying the entire class. The gym is very busy with a lot of other classes running concurrently, so she has to concentrate and not get distracted by everything else going on around her. Miss Kamy is a *bit* competitive, so she has thrived on the challenges.
We now officially have chickens! Our neighbor gave us four laying hens in return for Keller’s input on setting up his new house with wireless internet. The kids LOVE the chickens. They seriously check for eggs four or five times daily and are always so excited when they get one!
Daddy and Kamy continued reading Lewis’ series with “The Horse and His Boy” and “Prince Caspian.” They were really bored with “The Horse and His Boy,” so they skipped ahead and then read Caspian instead. That one held their attention better. =)
School-wise, we are studying Latin America and South America in our geography curriculum. I’m still pulling random math worksheets for Kamy from the internet, so she has been practicing graphing, place value, double digit addition, subtraction, and multiplication up to 5×5. We have talked about capitalization and punctuation in sentences. Kamy is using worksheets and crossword puzzles to practice spelling and handwriting. She’s doing great!
