A Communist Lemonade Stand?

I had a friend in seminary who explained government philosophies to his kids by using a lemonade stand as an example…over-simplified, but highly effective. So of course I had to steal this for my World Geography and Consumer Math students!

We were studying national governments in geography and economics in math, so I used the lemonade stand to combine the two. Here’s how it went.

Capitalist, Socialist, Communist

I had three groups picked randomly, and I told them each they were going to run a lemonade stand. I labeled one group capitalist, one group socialist and one group communist.

I asked each group if they would like to sell lemonade or make up their own drink. The capitalists chose to create their own out of pickle juice or something like that and call it some great, goofy name. I put it on the whiteboard.

Group socialist made up a great new drink, but I wrote “lemonade” on the board. “Sorry, but we need you to make lemonade,” I told them.