Summer Reading Book Clubs and More.

Yesterday Princess’s Kindergarten class had a field trip to our local library. Of course, Princess is very familiar with the library, we use the library frequently as any good frugalite family would. She came home full of stories of the bus ride down into town, the story they were read, and most exciting “If we read 5 books this summer, THEN WE GET A FREE BOOK!” Is she my girl or what? Of course the next thing that she said was. “But I don’t know HOW to read yet!”.

I reassured her that it was ok for me to read the books to her.

Check with your local library-this is a pretty standard summer program these days. The way ours works is the child reads (or you read to them, depending on the age) a certain number of books, the parent writes the name of the books on the sheet and signs it, and when complete the child gets to pick a free book from the box of free books.

Barnes and Noble bookstore is also sponsoring the Barnes and Noble summer reading program. All your children have to do is read 8 books (or have 8 books read to you) in the course of the summer, then using the journal and forms downloaded from Barnes and Noble’s site the child does a journal entry about each book and has their parent or guardian sign off on it. When complete they return it to the store for a coupon good for one book.

The books they read do not have to be from Barnes and Noble-they can be from home, friends, the library etc. The coupon, of course, is not good for any book in the store but rather for any book off a list of applicable books. But it is still a free book, and good encouragement for your child to read.

Princess, Buddy and I will be doing both of these programs this summer.

I also found information on the Build a Bear summer reading program. I’m not sure of all the details, but you read 5 books and you get a free book “kit” with book plates, book marks, and a $3 off coupon for a purchase of $15 or more at the build a bear workshop. I don’t plan on doing this because it will just introduce Princess to the concept of the Build a Bear workshop-and I think it is a rip off for what you get. Plus we are flooded in stuffed animals anyway.

SchwabLearning.com is doing a summer read along of Tom Sawyer. Each week they will publish a PDF of 2 chapters and an audio file of 2 chapters of the book. (they are already 2 weeks into it). At the end you can print of a certificate of completion. This one might be helpful to some homeschoolers out there. Also when I went to open the audio files (they are an MP3) it gave me the option to open or save-so you could just save the audio throughout the summer-or at the end-and then use them later.

Other articles about frugal summer fun:
Kids Summer Movie Deals
Frugal Museum Membership
Festivals~Cheap Summer Fun
Free Kids Computer Games Online

Frugal summer family summer fun Reading Summer Reading free books

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