Some Risky Business

My kids are always coming up with things to sell. No matter how many times I try to explain that no one is going to buy the same thing they have just thrown away, my boys cannot be swayed. They are convinced they can tear apart a perfectly good and working flashlight, rewire the bulbs, mount it to another object with some duct tape and sell it for twice its original value. While I laugh at their attempts at innovation, I can't help but wonder what would happen if they had more than cheap flashlights and duct tape to work with.

While I can't give them access to a welding machine or a plastic company, but I can help them with some business sense. So I began looking for ideas for a kid-operated business. I came up with quite a few by brainstorming and some help from Google. They could rake leaves, mow lawns, make child IDs, Christmas ornaments, paint fences to name a few. It wasn't until my husband came home from a school he is attending and was telling me how he had to make sure he took something to eat with him because there were no vending machines or Coke machines in the building, that I came of with a plan. So we went to the administration and asked if we could set out a basket of goodies to sell at reasonable prices. They agreed.

To prepare for the launching of their new vending business, we started by looking up definitions of some business vernacular. We have to be able to communicate after all. I had them define words like vendor, profit, account, investment, interest, inventory, etc. Then we did some research to find the products we would sell, made some charts, and chose our asking price based on our findings. We looked at who our vendors would be. Then we went and purchased the supplies and learned about overhead, and business loans. They will be required to repay that loan with interest with their earnings at their discretion.

We made a display board explaining who they are and that they will be learning about math and business through this enterprise along with the prices and instructions about leaving their change in the piggy bank.

So tonight, it is off to the school to set up, take our beginning inventory, and set up our booking system! Let's see how the little guys swim!

this is a test

will i see this in my rss?