BOGO

One of our summer activities has been the reading program at the Appleton Public Library. The kids get these sheets and they color in a square every time they read for 15 minutes. Every 7 squares you can earn a prize. The kids love it - Jacob even asks "Can we do 15-minute reading?"

We did this program last year too - and the prizes ranged from pencils, to small notepads, to a coupon for a free kids meal at Texas Road House. Unfortunately - this year - the prizes seem to be much more of the latter and much less of the former. So far (and the kids are on week 7-8 because Allison is one week ahead of Jacob), they've gotten a coupon for a free kids meal at Fazoli's, a free kids meal at Texas Roadhouse, and a free pretzel from Auntie Annie's. Nevermind that to "cash in" these coupons, you have to buy an adult meal at Fazoli's, Tezas Roadhouse, and a second pretzel at Auntie Annie's.

Should we really be encouraging our kids to eat out at Fast Food establishments? And what kind of prize is it when it ends up costing you money to redeem it? (We still have last year's Texas Roadhouse coupons too because it's very low on my list of places to eat out should we ever get the opportunity to eat out). I know that the library probably takes whatever local businesses will give them, but it's too bad this is all they could wrangle up this year.

If we add the week that the kids got a free day pass to the state park (which I'm not fundamentally opposed to - it's just that we have a yearly pass already and the kids - who are usually very excited to get their prizes - were like "what's this?") that makes half of the weeks so far where the prizes were coupons of some variety.

Allison and Jacob would probably be more than happy to show up each week and get a sticker for their efforts (week 3's prize). Their favorite so far - week 1's little bouncy ball.