Do You Order from Those Scholastic Book Orders at School?

No, we don't anymore. We DO get them books at the book fair twice a year..then they can open and flip through the books to see what they really want. We also do the library often enough...but no order forms.

He needs to have a little skin in the game. That could either be his own money or a very tight budget. If you let him just buy books he isn't going to consider whether it is a book he will enjoy over and over. My kids have always ordered books, not every month, maybe a couple times a year but they are books they have picked up over and over.

If it is a one of type book we go to the library. Since some of the money goes to buy more books for the school's library I don't mind buying them new.

I buy some of the bigger, non-fiction type books a couple of times a year from the Scholastic book order. Birthday and Christmas. These are the ones they read over and over. Like the Lego books or the World Records. The rest of the time I buy books for the kids on thrift stores, take books from the library and they read book from the classroom library. When books have been sitting unread I donate them to the classroom library. When they were learning to read they read the little levelled readers over and over. They read the reference books again and again, but chapter books only once.

He's excited and reads them - that's not a waste.

If you don't have the extra money to spare? Take your son to the library to borrow books.

If you still want to support the school? Give them a check or buy books for the school library.

To answer your question -no, I don't think it's a waste if my child reads and enjoys the books. Yes, I do purchase when then have the events.

My older son "devoured" books - he was such a voracious reader. Having books meant so much to him. We must have had 1000 books at one point between our children and our own books.

My kids pulled books off the shelves all the time. I weeded out those that were too easy for them and gave them away to friends, libraries or Goodwill. They are both young adults now and I still have two bookshelves of their books that I am having a hard time giving away. Some, like the Horrible History series, were hard to come by since some are out of print. I'm never giving those away!

I did buy Scholastic Books - it helped out the teacher. But I could afford to do it. I don't know if anything I've told you here has been helpful, but I think it's nice to have real books at home so that children can feel ownership of them and have their own personal
"library"...

ish. we did when my kids were in school. i wanted to support the schools, and i really wanted to support my kids' desire to read. and they DID get excited about the book fairs.
but i agree with you, those crappy books got read once or twice and ignored forever. i've still got two bookshelves full of books waiting for my grandkids, but there's not a scholastic book on them, they got donated years ago. i can't for the life of me figure out why they can't find really good books.
we were and are HUGE re-readers of great books. so go to the library and check 'em out, and if your kids love them and you think they will revisit them with joy, invest in them at that point. or if money isn't an issue and there's somewhere you enjoy donating once-read books, well, that's a nice thing to do.
but when i had small boys, we didn't have spare money. i wish i'd figured out earlier how to handle the scholastic book fairs. we wasted a ton.
khairete
S.

My kids read their books at home over and over again. We usually buy from scholastic a few times a year, but not every month. I also will often look for the $1-2 book deals around their birthdays and buy a bunch to give as party favors.

Why doesn't your son ever read his books again? Is he bored once he's read it once? Or does he forget about them? We read three books every night to my five year old before she goes to bed, and we just go through her shelves to find something she hasn't read in awhile. Or sometimes, she just keeps picking her same favorites.

My eight year old will even reread chapter books if he likes them enough.

Maybe it's a question of making sure you're picking books your son will really enjoy.

He's 6. You're supposed to be going to the book shelf all the time and picking out books to read together. He doesn't get to pick each and every time. There isn't anything wrong with building a library in his room. Some day he will be reading on his own and hopefully will enjoy grabbing a book to read.

I would say that we didn't buy more than one or two books per order. Now, if the kids fell in love with a series and there was a great deal on books from that series we'd probably buy as many of them as we could. IF they price was great. We got all the Sandra Boynton books that way.

Our kiddos know they get books from us at Christmas and on birthdays. They get other stuff too but they are always going to get books. Hubby and I love to read and we have a lot of books. I have several series on my book shelf and he has more.

So, you go and pick out a book and he can pick out a book. Then you read both together.

We had an agreement that I would buy as many books as she would read because my 22 year old has always loved reading. I purchased scholastic, book fairs and from every book store under the sun. I never saw it as a waste. What a wide variety she has, especially now. Yep, the situation still applies!!

I have an addiction to books and am a book hoarder. We have literally 100s of books in our house. We get Scholastic book orders x2 at our house and order from both. I have a very difficult time getting rid of books. So do my kids. We reread books all the time. Some of them are falling apart because they have been read so many times. Some of those are kids' chapter books. I personally don't think money is wasted on books. Ever. Plus we usually have 20-30 books checked out of three different libraries at any given time.

Some things you can do:

Put a little library in your yard and fill it with kids' books.

Donate them to your child's teacher.

Give them to your local hospital or doctor or dentist office.

Donate them to an organization that gives books to kids. We have several organizations that include books in backpacks of food.

Donate to your school or public library.

Hmm, well some Scholastic books were only read once but most more so, for sure. But really the library is ALWAYS a good idea, I mean that's how I knew which authors, series and genres worth actually WORTH purchasing.

My son is 8.5 years, so he's in a different place in that he knows what he likes and has spent his own money on books he wants. We don't order through Scholastic but do buy from the book fair the school has twice a year. $20 limit and we always buy a book from the teacher's wish list as well. Captain Underpants has been the favorite purchase and Kiddo reads them over and over. Otherwise, we hit the library nearly every other weekend AND he has library time at school every week. Yes, some books he reads time and again. We are also very liberal about what he is allowed to check out/buy, so he finds topics he likes (Ninjago graphic novels, Ripley's Believe it or Not books, Lego/Minecraft books on construction techniques-- he tends to pore over the nonfiction offerings just as often as the fiction.) and we tend to buy from that pool.

Just me, but I find the Scholastic offerings pretty limited to the 'hits' of kids books. And Kiddo can get a lot more 'book' out of ten dollars at the Goodwill or used at the bookstore. While I prefer that we borrow most books from the library, when he wanted a full-color version of the Captain Underpants books and I said it was beyond our budget that day (he'd already made other choices) he bought one at the Goodwill for .99 and colored it in. While we don't usually allow that, it was HIS book and he already had announced his intention--- he found a way to solve a problem and get what he wanted without us buying it for him.

I can't even count how many books I have bought for my daughter, her first year home-schooling she read over 100 books (short chapter books). She has kept her favorites and donated the rest. When she comes across something she wants to read we check the library first and if they don't have it I will buy a copy.

I don't mind donating them since there are a lot of kids in my area that would love to have them.

When my daughter was in school we would order from Usborne children's books for their book fair.
http://www.usborne.com/

My kids re-read theirs, even chapter books. For a 6 year old, I'd assume you are also reading picture books with him still and we totally re-read picture books...many many times. They still like it when I read their favorites now and then. I also still read chapter books to them and we try to read a series together, just for fun each night before they read independently. I need to get to the library more though, because they do prefer new books to read independently. I think I'd go to the library weekly and only order a few books every few months, if mine didn't re-read books.

They have the "sale" or "special" (I forget now what they are called but are only a buck or two) books and we always bought those. They were excited to get a new book and it didn't cost me a fortune every time. Good luck.

MOST people do not re-read books. Sure, some people have favorites that they gravitate towards re-reading (as they get much older...), and little kids like to re-read the same books/stories when they are being read to them, for example, like a bed time story. But generally speaking, chapter books for kids are one and done type affairs.

If you can afford it, please consider continuing to let him choose, buy, and read books from Scholastic. Even if he is done as soon as the last page is read. Pass them on to someone. Donate them. Let him trade with friends. Whatever.

I have loved reading since I was a young child, and waiting for the Scholastic Orders to arrive was torturous and wonderful all at once. Like the anticipation of Christmas... just whenever.. My parents did not have tons of discretionary funds to spend on junk, but I was ALWAYs allowed to choose/buy about 3 books or so each time (and they did it a few times a year, if I recall accurately). As soon as they arrived, I did nothing in my spare time except read. Then they were done, and I started looking forward to the next book order. Reading the summaries in the sales booklet that was passed out was part of the excitement in choosing...
There is nothing quite like reading a "new" book with a crisp binding that no one else has bent the pages of.
If you cannot afford it, then of course don't spend the money--take him to the library on a REGULAR basis. But if you can, then do.

But yes, one and done is pretty typical. I've not read too many books multiple times in my life, and I love to read.

We order from the book orders. I have passed our books down through our kids so they get well read. I typically only order one book and I choose a slightly advanced one they will grow into - they ultimately choose the book (mine get excited for them too) but usually they've circled about 4 and I just pick the one I think we'll read most often (like a chapter book as opposed to one that's just a sticker book, etc.).
I have an avid reader in the house so we collected all the Geronimo Stilton books and Magic Treehouse ones etc. and they were read over and over. If I didn't, I probably wouldn't buy one every order - maybe just the holiday ones. My kids love the My Little Pony Halloween book, etc.

We have a massive library. my oldest reads for two hours a day, and she will re-read books when she has nothing to read. Since there are two more kids in the house, i'm hopeful the books she doesn't read will appeal more to them when they become readers. But i swear my oldest is such a strong reader because I bought her a massive library of books. I'm not a big fan of scholastic. I like Usborne, but mostly, we just shop around and buy what looks good. I buy a lot of used books.

I always bought my girls almost any books they wanted from the book orders - for each book you order the teacher gets books too and points to purchase classroom supplies. Your child is reading books, that is great, and excited to be doing so which is even better. The books are a great price usually, and when your child is done reading them you can donate them to the school, sell them at half price books or at a garage sale or just keep them in case he decides some day to read them again. Maybe set a limit on how much money he can spend but don't stop ordering.

If you can get the books in the library then do that. Personally, I never mind buying books but my daughters at that age did read their books more than once.

We do once in a while and love how inexpensive some of them are. My kids do not re-read books (neither do I). We keep a few of their favorites. If you don't want to keep a library, feel free to donate the book you buy to the teacher, the school library, or your public library. They would be glad to take books of your hands. Otherwise, visiting your library is a great way to go too. But I don't see the harm in ordering through scholastic...your teacher gets great benefits from it to order books for free for her classroom library.

If there is a special book, we'll order it. But otherwise, no, the kids get books from the library. You might want to see if you can't find another mother with the same problem and start trading books.

Okay, in your case, I would only order the books that cost $2 or $3 (believe me, there are some.).
It's fun for the kids to get a book delivered to their classroom that they were able to choose.
Then I would take stock of what is in your bookshelf now.
We do re-read our books but do they end up later gathering dust? Yes.
Be super sure when you order books form the Scholatic Book Order forms that he will really like it.
Look for special books (like Chritmas ones) at the thrift store.
Really read the description on the book order form to ensure that he will be interested.
Lastly, go to the library for sure. No cost.

I only order the books that cost just a couple of dollars. I have been begged for the ones the cost more or for the sets. I usually pass books to someone else or even give to the library. They will take gently used books. Sometimes, my kids would read a book again after a while.

Now you're making me miss my baby with this question..just kidding(could also be the sitting around the house with this contration on shoulder/arm kicking in too)
But anyways... yes, we'd buy some here and there and he'd usually rerad them-- definitely not a waste

take care

I do the book orders every now and again, but my kids aren't avid readers (which I don't get at all...I inhaled books as a kid and still read everything I can get my hands on). They tend to go back to the same few books over and over and over (Diary of Wimpy Kid, etc.). I do use the monthly forms to get deals on books that I would give as gifts too, and then I have them buy at the book fair twice a year because the school gets a % of those sales.

I don't order from Scholastic. I feel they do way too much merchandising of branded/corporate toys and have completely unfair access to a captive population of students. Plus most of the books just aren't 1) very good and 2) books one would reread. We do buy books at book sales and bookstores. I try to only buy books that would be worth rereading. Mostly we use the library. DS is 9 and is allowed to take out as many books as he can carry at a time. We go to the library twice a week. No way would I want to try to fit that many books into my house permanently.

As for supporting the school, a direct donation is more effective. The school keeps 100% of it. And of course I pay school taxes.

First, I only order one or two books at a time. Ours are not every month, more like a couple times per year, so you can imagine that's quite a few fewer books gathering dust. S., why won't he read them? If they're not interesting to him find something that might hold his attention more. Something more challenging? Maybe move up to chapter books you two can read together (you doing most of the reading for now, maybe). Change it up a bit. But I would stop with the excessive purchasing of books that you can see he doesn't really appreciate. We read often enough (and it wasn't that often) that we wore out the stock that we had. I agree with you that if this is how he reads, the library is a better bet. But I also think it sounds like could use something a little more challenging.

Once and done. Find a consignment shop to take the books and take in all the clothes that don't fit him at the same time. Make sure to take enough to cover the gas in your car.

We always re-read books over and over again.
I bought books that were interesting to us - not just to buy any book - and if there was nothing that appealed - then we didn't get anything.
I got a few crock pot cook books that way.
Sometimes teachers had a list of books they wanted for their classroom - I'd buy one for them.

Hi,

I encourage you and your son to pick carefully from the selections. Scholastic has quite a variety of cutsie and low value offerings, many of which have commercial ties. They sell quite well. But each month there are also chapter books, classics and good non-fiction options. I know some parents let their child pick one and the parents pick one. These jewels are relatively inexpensive and are often read again and again.

All my best.

Yes, though we usually only have a book fair now.

If you find that he's not actually reading them, maybe think about what happens after the book arrives. Does he read them? Do you read to him? Does he choose books that just look pretty vs things that would really interest him? When my DD had a monthly book order, I let her choose one or two so that those books get appreciated. I also ordered online or ordered for other family members (books are great birthday and holiday gifts) to support the school.

Some of my DD's books get read once and then not again. Sometimes it just doesn't live up to expectations. We pass them on - maybe to a teacher who needs more for his/her reading corner or to a younger relative. What you might also do is check out a book or two from the library (you should be able to see a bunch of orderable books online) and if he likes it enough to want it at home, then do so. That's how we ended up with Dragons Love Tacos.

You can also order the extras like posters to support the class instead of books (Scholastic will give the teacher free books) if he's just in a phase where the library is better for books for your family.

I don't buy the scholastic books for exactly the reasons you mentioned. They are read once then they take up space and catch dust. We take advantage of our local library instead.