Great idea! I send my son with a book to read on the bus with the hope of keeping him calm for the half-hour ride.

You need to go to the drivers and get their input. Make sure their okay with it first. Maybe you can make some neat decorated boxes that can be stashed behind their seats. You'll need to mark the books so there is no question as to who they belong to. You can make attractive labels easily on the computer.

I would ask for donations from familes first. Hit tag sales and library book sales. You can get books cheaply through Scholastic Book orders and fairs too. Don't forget to rotate the stock or they'll get bored again. Try to stick to books that can appeal to a broad age group. You don't need kids taking five minutes to pick out a book. Picture books about animals, space, dinosaurs, etc. The little ones will enjoy looking at pictures even if the words are over their heads and the older ones might even learn something.

Good luck. Keep us poosted on your progress!

I think that is a pretty neat idea. As for kids wanting to take them, probably won't be that big of a problem. If you get to do this then have the principal or someone to talk to them about what a privelige it is to have these books, on their level of course, and tell them if the books get a lot of damage or disappear then that will be the end of it.

About lunch time...They may get pretty messed up if you put them on the table where everyone is actually eating. Do you think you would be able to set up a Reading Table for those that get done early enough to read? One that is kept clean? I don't know how your lunchroom is set up. Maybe you could have a monitor or volunteer to come around with a basket of books for the children that are done eating. Some of those avid readers may forget about eating and want to read. I've seen children like that.

I am all for encouraging reading. I think it is a great idea too, take it and run with it.

At our pto openhouse / pizza dinner, we raised $1000.00 selling pizza dinner, last year's yearbook, last years school t-shirts, and pto drive.(we got 100% of our items needed from donations)Our first time to turn a profit.
So here is the ? what do we do with all this extra $$$$$. Here was our idea, lets buy books to put in the center of the table at lunch and on all the buss for the kids to read. Are hope is that it will give the kids something to do after eating and on the ride to and from school, and we hope it will reduce the amount of kids that are getting in trouble because "there board" and "Their is nothing to do", maby our reading score might ever inprove.
so... now we have the $$, we have the idea... has any one tryed this? And how did you pull it off? Did you buy new books and trade the new books for old books with the school? How do we stop the kids from just taking the books? I do not want to spend alot of $$ on books and they get stolen or torn up?
I think it is a cool idea, I just hope it works out.