Right after school on the last day, we head straight for the kids favorite place, Olive Garden. We call it "Our Last Day of School Celebration".
I decided to bring the 100% Papers folder with us and each kid was handed their stack of papers to count. However many 100% papers they had in that stack equaled how much money they would earn towards spending on Back to School clothes and items later that summer. They get $1 per paper.
The kids LOVE going thru their papers and being surprised to see how many papers they really did a great job on! It's always such a positive experience because it's a day to reflect only on the good and another great opportunity for you to tell them how proud of them you are.
Once they've counted up their papers, I hand them their stack of money that they earned. The first year I did this, I used a paper money pack that I bought at the nearst Dollar Store. The next year, I used real money because I knew it would be more fun for them.
I needed to know how much I would need by first peeking thru the stack of papers and counting them up. To accomplish the pay off with the real money, I drove to the bank and got 175 dollar bills out (or you can do the larger bills but know exactly what you need. That's how many total papers there were between the two kids). Then I headed to school to pick the kids up and off to Oliver Garden we went. We order our food then begin the counting.
(Now.... I know what you are thinking...... "Are you crazy??! I'm not giving my kid $175 to spend AND I don't have that kind of money just laying around!!") Hear me out. I had no real intention of my kids getting to keep the money past the initial celebration lunch. I just wanted to make them feel excited about something and also teach them the value of earning their school clothes and supplies. If you think about it, we are going to spend at least that much anyway when we go school shopping for clothes and those incredibly long teacher supplies list we get these days. Well, my plan was to get the money out of the bank account right before I picked them up for lunch and then we would put that same money back in our account first thing the next morning. Here's what the purpose is...... the purpose is to have a moment of PURE JOY with your kids. Any kid would be excited to see that their parent is so proud of them for doing well all throughout the school year and kept their 100% papers. And, any kid would be excited to get to hold that much money.(My son was so thrilled because he had never held 100 real dollars in his hand before). After they added up their papers, received their amount of money and counted it all up, they handed it back to me to "hold" til it was time for the Back to School Boutiqe (more on that later). I make a mental note of how much each kid got and then I return the money to the bank account the next morning. They know I'm holding their money for them until it's time to shop. Easypeasy. It takes a little pre-planning and a short amount of your time but it is SO worth it.
Also, it's just another way of having a special family moment and teaching them to earn things and acknowleding their hard work and effort at school. It also makes my kids realize that THEY are purchasing the school items (see the "Back to School Boutique" post to know how we do back to school shopping in our house). It helps teach that lesson that they can't just get whatever they want during back to school shopping. The only effort this tradition requires is the 5 minutes in the bank's drive thru line, a little folder space somewhere to throw the papers in and a special celebration time picked at the end of the school year to honor them for doing so well! Make It Happen!
No comments:
Post a Comment