Want to inspire math and writing skills as well as compassion and a bit of entrepreneurial spirit? Host a bake sale! A good friend held one yesterday and kindly invited my son to join. In fact, the idea came from her five-year-old daughter and her girlfriend. So the night before her son and daughter helped bake the goodies. On the day of, someone had to write the cardboard sign that explained why they were holding the bake sale—to raise funds for a village in Thailand—a charity sponsored by our kids’ school. The sign also had to explain the prices of the cookies and cake as well as the lemonade. They propped a table at the gate of her driveway and sold their wares for approximately two hours after school.
My son relished making change for all the folks who popped by—mainly cabbies in central London. In the end, they raised £43.02—roughly $106.00 to be given to aid this struggling village. The children were so proud to present the money to their principal this morning. And I, of course, could only smile and thank my friend for including my son. William now wants to hold more sales and he’s thinking of what streets and neighborhoods would get more traffic. “I really think they should have sold the drinks for more than ten cents,” he says to me seriously this morning on the way to school. “I mean, if they sold them for twenty-five how much more could they have raised?”
I just smiled thinking of his future business days ahead. My six-year-old already wants to open Chick-fil-A restaurants and Target stores in London and discusses how well they’d do here and why. He even asked his entrepreneurial dad about how he should approach investors!
But seriously, yesterday’s bake sale inspired me a little too. There must be tons of ways to tap into our kids interests and expand upon them through fun activities. My son adores math and science, but isn’t terribly fond of reading out loud or writing exercises. Writing the sign for the bake sale was a perfect way to get him excited about writing.
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