The Start of Lette Lou’s
Last spring, eLearning was a failure for our family. I’m a teacher and even I had difficulties navigating the education of my own child while working. At the time, Lette Lou was six and an only child. It was difficult to keep her learning online and occupied while I was teaching other children online at the same time. I ended up buying toys, games, and activities to try and keep her busy but that got expensive!
Masked up, she and I traveled the aisle of the stores looking for some kind of brain stimulus. Lette Lou spotted a toy...
“I said 'no' and she argued.
I responded with, 'You can buy it with your own money.'
‘I'm only six and I don't have money. How do I get money?' She answered.”
We then discussed how people earn money by working. We also talked about what skills she could use to earn money. She decided that she was good at walking our dog. Which she was!
New Direction
Because I'm a Special Education Teacher, I have the summers off and was looking for something to keep me focused and give me some direction. We put out a post on social media about her little dog walking business and got a few appointments to walk dogs of friends and family members. Meeting the dogs and talking with people gave my child the social emotional connection we were missing because of the pandemic. The teacher in me believes there is a lesson in every life experience. So, as we walked dogs, we got deeper with our learning (and were able to supplement the education we missed in the spring).
Every appointment with the dogs brought new lessons:
We learned about geography / navigation / GPS getting to our appointments.
We learned grit and resilience when dogs wouldn't behave or we had to do the tough jobs like "picking up poo."
We learned math and science while baking our treats (measuring / conversions / temperature / taring weight).
We learned about community and charity as we gave donations and visited with local shelters around Christmas.
We learned about art, primary, secondary, and tertiary colors as we designed our packaging and our soon to be released products.
We visited the post office and learned about shipping when we sent customers our treats.
Lette Lou learned fiscal responsibility and counting money when we put some money in her college fund, donated, and when she was finally able to buy her toy.
As we blogged our experiences and interactions with the dogs and their owners, Lette Lou worked on her writing, reading, story telling, and sequencing skills.
Reaching Our Goals
Our Lette Lou treats became a big seller with family and friends early on and Lette Lou asked if we could sell them in stores. “Now that’s a cool Idea,” I thought. We set a goal, investigated how to build a shelf life, researched other products, and designed our packaging. In February, we reached our goal! We’re excited to share our Pumpkin Nutty Recipe dog treats are on the shelves at Noble Coffee and Tea Company, Ltd. in Noblesville, Indiana. If you visit the shop, be sure to check out their Rescue Roast—a coffee designed with doggy lovers in mind. A portion of the proceeds from this coffee are donated to local rescues!
This project has been an amazing opportunity for us to share our love of learning with our community! We are thankful for their outpouring of love and support during this adventure. Thank you too, as a reader for checking out our blog! We invite you to follow us as we further explore the community around us.
