Teaching Arkansas Standards through Games: The Lemonade Stand Game
In this game, students become “Lemonade Entrepreneurs” and earn money by providing a valuable service to happy customers.
The Lemonade Game is an AMI resource that offers flexibility for educators looking to differentiate instructional methods for different types of learners. The Lemonade Stand Game is available from Cool Math Games, a collection of websites started in 1997 with the goal of making math enjoyable and fun for audiences of all ages. They offer a large variety of math games covering topics from numbers and sequencing to algebra and calculus. The materials are available through a desktop site and a mobile site where many of their games, including the Lemonade Stand Game, are adapted to play on mobile devices.
In the Lemonade Stand Game, students use the economic way of thinking to make decisions, allocate resources efficiently, and maximize profits.
The Lemonade Stand Game
In the Lemonade Stand game, students play as lemonade entrepreneurs who are operating a lemonade stand for 7, 14, or 21 days, where each “day” lasts for a few minutes. The number of days selected increases the amount of time spent playing the game and the amount of profits students can earn. The game-play options create opportunities to extend or shorten the lesson as needed.
For an in-class session, have students begin by playing through a 7-day “practice” round before competing against one another in a longer 14-day game. If you’re using the game in a hybrid or online class, again have students practice using a 7-day game, then have them play through a 14- or 21-day game and track the decisions that they make as time passes.
Once students have selected a game length, they will use the economic way of thinking to make decisions about supply and demand, allocate resources efficiently, and maximize profits. Within the game, students must take steps each morning to prepare for a successful business day. They check the weather to predict how many customers they might have and how many materials they will need to have on hand. With $20 in start-up money, they make an initial investment in lemonade-making materials to get started.
Once they've opened their lemonade stand, students must monitor the feedback they receive from their customers: Are they including enough lemons, sugar, and ice in their recipe? Is their lemonade too expensive? Students learn how to respond to this feedback and make adjustments throughout the game to maximize their profits in the end. The game also includes various scenarios that can hurt profits, like heat waves melting ice supplies, lemons rotting, customers complaining and refusing to buy anything, and the business running out of cups and having to close up shop early.
This game can be played individually, or with a group of students competing to see who can earn the largest profits. It can be played in a traditional classroom, or easily embedded into an online classroom meeting. Using Google Classroom, Schoology, or another online platform, share a game link with students along with a few questions to think about while they are playing. Then create a discussion board where they can share their scores and strategies with one another. Follow up with an assessment where students present how they did and what they learned through virtual presentation software like Prezi or Flipgrid.
Learning Objectives and Standards in This Game
In the Lemonade Stand game, students will develop daily business plans and make choices based on information provided to them each day. This online game helps students explore many concepts from economics, personal finance, and quantitative literacy standards:
EM.3.E.1: Analyze the role of consumers in a market economy
EM.2.E.2: Demonstrate changes in supply and demand (e.g., shifts, shortages, surpluses, availability) that influence equilibrium price and quantity using a supply and demand model
Questions for Guided Discussion
Did you make a profit from your lemonade stand, or did you lose money?
What signals did you consider and what steps did you take each day before you opened up shop?
Did you over-purchase any supplies that went to waste?
Did you under-purchase supplies and have to close early one day?
Did anyone adjust their prices in the middle of the selling day? Did you increase them or decrease them, and why?
What changes would you make to your business model if another person opened up a competing lemonade stand a few blocks away from you?
What steps would you take to improve your business next time?
Decision-Making in Action
The Lemonade Stand game is economics in action, a simulation where students make choices to allocate scarce resources. It helps students understand how many economic decisions a business owner has to make to operate successfully day after day. Through this activity, students can discover or rediscover how quickly and effectively they can make economic decisions.
