book bucks

when i was growing up all the schools participated in the "book it" program sponsored by pizza hut. you read a book. you earned a star sticker and a button. you read some more books. you earned more stars. eventually, you earned enough stars to buy a personal pan pizza. it was motivating and fun for the pizza lovers out there.

but that was on the east coast. out here in cali they dance to a different reading drum. a cooler one, if i do say so myself. it's called "book bucks".

on monday the kids are sent home with a newspaper. each day they are tasked with reading the paper for 15 minutes and doing an age appropriate newspaper scavenger hunt. it was pretty fun to watch e read her paper. it was a new form of text for her and she liked exploring something different.

this doesn't really surprise me as her daddy and my daddy are big fans of newspapers. my father worked in print media and spends each morning perusing his local paper from cover to cover. e's daddy skims the on-line newspaper for each city where he has ever lived (yes, every day. and the number of cities is starting to add up.)

back to e- so she read her paper, she hunted for words, pictures, headlines etc.

at the end of the week she turned in her documentation and earned her "bucks". this is where the program rocks, in my opinion. local companies sponsor the "book bucks" by accepting them in exchange for certain goods. when the kids received their newspaper it came with an insert indicating who the sponsors were and the items they were selling in exchange for "bucks".

my e tends to be pretty thoughtful in decisions such as this. she scrutinized the choices, counted her bucks, and came up with a plan. her choices? why two goldfish... friends, meet sarah and sunny. here's to hoping our third set of goldfish make it!

and a happy meal complete with playtime on the "forbidden" germ (i mean, ah-hem, play) structure.

this mcdonald's avoiding momma was happy to oblige. she earned the "bucks" all by herself, so i thought it fitting to let her choose how she would spend them... even if it meant lunch at contamination station (joking- we used to eat here way too much so i am finally putting my foot down. it's not that bad in moderation but we were struggling with moderation). and e loved every bite.