So, this fall we have been studying the history of the Ancients through a Messianic Jewish perspective. We started with Creation then traveled to ancient Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt and now we are in Ancient Israel. It just so happened that the Dallas Art Museum was also hosting the King Tut exhibit at the same time we were studying Ancient Egypt. Bonni and I (my fearless home school bud) decided that we wanted to take the kids to the exhibit, but there was just one problem. It wasn't cheep, ($27.50 for adults, and $16.50 for kids) and who knew if my 6 year old and 4 year old would even remember what we saw an hour later. Basically, I didn't want to spend a lot of $ on this gig. So, I had to come up with a creative way to "Send us to Egypt".
Two words, Bake Sale. We made rice crispy treats, carmel popcorn and sold lemon aid at Bonni's neighborhood party, but this is not the end of our adventure. My husband, being the entrepreneur that he is could not let it go at just a bake sale. No, he needed to turn this into a lesson on profit and capitalism. He sat the kids down at the kitchen table and set up a mock-store with all the ingredients that they would need to purchase for their baked goods. Then they had to buy the goods upfront with their own money. After the sale at the neighborhood party, they counted up all of the $ and then they were paid back for all of their expenses. Landon only made $1 in profit. However, this was not the end. We were also having a neighborhood garage sale a week later and we still had plenty of inventory to push. After it was all finished Landon ended up with $27 profit and a lady at Bonni's neighborhood party gave us 2 free adult tickets. Then we found out that if we went to the exhibit between 8-9 in the morning, we would save $10 off of each ticket. So... Bonni and I loaded up all 6 kids early one morning and fought through the crazy Dallas traffic to get down town before 9 so Landon could save $10 off of his ticket. We made it with 10 minutes to spare. Landon paid for his ticket ($7 with tax) all by himself with the $ he earned and was able to keep the rest of the $20 as his profit. Boy was he excited.
Oh, and the Tut exhibit was good, but definitely not worth $44. Overall it was a great experience, but I would say that Jason's profit lesson is the one they will always remember.
