Happy Sticker Market

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Our ransom over the kids involves 'Happy Stickers.' Premise: Happy Sticker are rewarded for good behavior and retained for bad behavior, and then near the end of camp we open a market where the stickers are redeemed for prizes. The purchasing power of a happy sticker is 2 = half a banana. But, the true power of Happy Stickers lies in the fact that kids will kill each other over one. If I need to distract children I will throw a sheet of stickers on the ground and watch them fight over it like beggars looking for their last meal towards survival.
The best item you could possibly buy at the market is an orange slice or banana, not because they are the most expensive but because the other gifts are tragically misguided. In an attempt to save money, all trinkets and books in the 'market' were taken from the bargain bin of some second hand store. Upon examining the ‘market’ we found two books that really summed-up the philosophical mood of all items for sell "Someone Special Died" and "Mom and Dad Break Up"
Of course, there was also small Legos and stationary, but never anything you wouldn’t find in a Happy Meal. My booth at the market was the Banana stand, and after the kids reviewed their options (Candies, OJ, Stationary, Legos, Oranges, English Books) I quickly sold out of product. Then I did a little experiment. I threw a couple of sheets of Happy Stickers to the ground and the children instantly pounced on each other and fought over a sheet. Proving: The symbolic nature of having stickers was more important than the value of the stickers, because they knew they were basically worth nothing more than a shitty book written in Pigeon English. And they were pretty pissed when I ran out of stickers to throw, but then I quoted one of newly found favorite books “My dad is still my dad and my mom is still my mom, even though they live in different houses - BUT” for emphasis “There will always be Hugs” - that didn’t do much to console the happy sticker deficiency.

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Photos

Tommy and Andie
fun TAs

Waiting for the Market
Notice the blur - thats my hyper kids

HAHAHA
Emily, Tim, and Patti - Reflecting over the best books from the "Kids have feelings too" series. But there will always be hugs

Comments

[Beth]

I think my library has those books, maybe even the series

[Chelsea]

Funny how they had the same books in Russia.