A Party!

At the beginning of the school year, Dakota and I were trying to think of a way to help motivate Emma to work on her writing--the subject she enjoys least in school. The idea we came up with was to give her a job. She would be our resident book reporter--kind of like a newspaper reporter who writes book reviews. Our little book worm couldn't resist! We told her she would earn $.50 for each book she reported on. (play money) Then she could save her earnings and use them to plan a party after the end of the semester.

Though she didn't always enjoy writing her book reports, she worked hard and reviewed many good books for us. She also wrote and illustrated a couple stories, which we also "paid" her for. By the end of the semester she had saved enough play money for a party.

We treated the play money as though it were real money, and told her how much the things she wanted for her party would cost. She had to decide what was most important, and what she could do without. The first things on her list were chocolate cupcakes with white and blue frosting. Also on her list: pizza (lunch with 4 friends), book bags to decorate, and a movie.

She was excited to invite some friends over for lunch on Saturday. She asked each of them to bring 2-3 books for a book exchange at the party. After lunch, the girls decorated their book bags.

Then they had a book exchange. Each girl got to exchange the 2 or 3 books she brought for 2 or 3 books that someone else brought. So everyone got to go home with new books. They had fun looking through all the books everyone had brought.

After that, they watched the Tinkerbell movie Emma had picked out. They were captivated!

Emma really enjoyed getting to help plan a party she had earned with her hard work in school. We're proud of how well she is doing, and how much her writing has improved from the start of the school year. It was a fun, well-deserved party.