Inc. magazine is sponsoring The Best Lemonade Stand in America Contest. Parents of children between the ages of 5 and 12 may enter the contest for them by filling out an online form about your child’s experiences in starting and running a lemonade stand. A digital image of the lemonade stand must also be included. Finally, entries must be received by 11:59 PM (ET) July 30, 2006.

• Norm Brodsky gives 10 Tips for Winning the Coolest Lemonade Stand in America Contest
• There’s lots of help for kid-trepreneurs at TeachingKidsBusiness.com‘s Kid’s Lemonade Stand Business Program.
• Find great tips on How to Sell Lemonade at eHow.com. I especially liked the tip on making lemonade ice (put lemonade in ice trays) the night before. This way your jug of stays cold and doesn’t get watered down.

But what you really need is a good lemonade recipe. The trick is to make a sugar syrup. Usually kids dump a bunch of white sugar in water, the sugar sinks to the bottom, and you end up with sour lemonade. Since these recipes involve cooking, an adult must help or at least supervise older children.

Easy Lemonade
By Heather Fantasia at AllRecipes.com

Ingredients:

1. 3/4 cup fresh lemon juice
2. 2 quarts water
3. 1/2 cup white sugar

Directions:

1. In a large pan, combine water and sugar. Heat until the sugar just melts.
2. Remove from heat and pour in lemon juice.
3. Mix well and chill in refrigerator before serving.
4. Garnish with lemon, lime or orange slices.

Heather also suggests using a combination of lemon and lime, or lemon and orange, or lemon, lime and orange juices.

Aunt Suzie at AllRecipes.com claims this is how lemonade used to be made:

Vintage Lemonade
By Aunt Suzie at AllRecipes.com

Ingredients:

1. 5 lemons
2. 1 1/4 cup white sugar
3. 1 1/4 quarts water

Directions:

1. Peel the rinds from the 5 lemons and cut them into 1/2 inch slices. Set the lemons aside.
2. Place the rinds in a bowl and sprinkle the sugar over them. Let this stand for about one hour, so that the sugar begins to soak up the oils from the lemons.
3. Bring water to a boil in a covered saucepan and then pour the hot water over the sugared lemon rinds. Allow this mixture to cool for 20 minutes and then remove the rinds.
4. Squeeze the lemons into another bowl. Pour the juice through a strainer into the sugar mixture. Stir well, pour into pitcher and pop it in the fridge! Serve with ice cubes.

Additional lemonade hints:

• Add a little beet juice, grenadine syrup, cranberry juice, or red food coloring to make pink lemonade.
• Add fresh mint to your lemonade jug. This was Max and Ruby’s grandmother’s secret tip.
• For more lemonade recipes go to AllRecipes.com or About.com

Finally some fabulously fun lemonade stand books:

• Alex and the Amazing Lemonade Stand – For ages 4 to 8, this books tells the inspirational true story of Alexandra Alex Scott, the 8-year-old founder of Alexandra’s Lemonade Stand for Pediatric Cancer Research. Faced with a problem, Alex came up with a plan to sell lemonade from a lemonade stand! This story shows how the small act of one person can impact many people, an important lesson for children of all ages.
• Doggone Lemonade Stand! – When life gives Christopher lemons, he makes lemonade, but when he opens his own lemonade stand, he experiences the sweet and sour sides of business. From the Christopher Counts series of developmentally appropriate math adventures for ages 5-7 this is  great way to introduce the concept of factions to children.

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