Entrepreneurship Simulation Game for a Lemonade Stand

Did you know that November 18-24 is Global Entrepreneurship week?  You can read more at this link about Global Entrepreneurship Week.

Go Venture is a company that has online games and simulations. They have a free lemonade stand simulation going on starting today through Nov. 24th. Students and adults can play the simulation to create a lemonade stand.  They start out by creating a logo and naming their business. Then they choose the price of their lemonade, the recipe, and purchase their ingredients.  As they go through the simulation, their profits depend on things like the weather, their cost, and whether or not excess inventory spoils. It is a great way to get kids to think about economics and what really goes into supply and demand.  Go to this link to start playing the game. You can click here to register your school in the competition.

You could follow up the simulation by having the kids create actual logos or business cards for their lemonade stand.  They could write up a proposal for a class business. We use hoot loot as a classroom economy and have a store at the end of each month where the kids buy things.  I am thinking of letting the kids propose an idea for a class store where they could identify a product, think of inventory, advertising, profits, etc.

To go with doing the Lemonade Stand simulation, we are going to read Patricia Polacco's book The Lemonade Club.  It is a very touching story about how a class pitches in to help a fellow student who has cancer. The whole idea of the book focuses on the idea of making lemonade out of lemons.  Since we are discussing being thankful in the month of November, I think is a great tie in to the simulation game as well as the ideas of being positive and thankful.

How do you teach your students about entrepreneurship and economics?