School is done tomorrow and I have to say good-bye to my wonderful little kiddies. I can't believe it is that time of the year already. They will all be moving on to middle school and I will shed a few tears no matter how hard I try to control it. I wish each and every one of them exactly what they need to make it through and be successful in their own unique ways. They will stay in my prayers and in my heart.

We had our final count today! We ended the year with 33 345.5 bread tabs. Yes, they had half a bread tab and added on the five tenths. They make me laugh!

The bread tabs are now safely packed away in a cardboard box, awaiting a new group of kiddies ready to learn about the size of one million (or maybe 66 000).

Well my kids reminded me today how much this project has come to mean to them. The TA from my class last year came to visit. The kiddies were thrilled to see him. I had a combined class last year, so half of my class had worked with him. After about 10 minutes, he stated that he had bread tabs for us. As he dug into one of his pockets, one of my students also started to help him, by digging into his pocket. They grabbed the ice cream container, scooped them all in, and promptly thanked him.

They have begun to scour all areas for our little bag closing marvels. We have been on three field trips recently. One was for the purpose of releasing salmon we had raised in our classroom, another to tour the middle school they are attending and another to the seashore. At each of these sites I had at least one student come up to me with a smile and a "Madame, look what I found just laying on the ground." I hope they don't start snagging them from fresh bread at the grocery store. :s

One of my students from last year, who has moved on to middle school, stopped by this week with a bag of about 300 tabs. This is the second time he has made a bread tab drop-off. The school librarian came in with a large bag from the hospital cafeteria where her mom works. Did I ever mention we have an amazing little community school?

Now for some of those strange occurrences surrounding this project. One day, while checking my school e-mail, I get a message from someone I don't know asking if I wanted her bread tabs. She said she had found out about our endeavor on Kijiji. For those who don't know, Kijiji is a kind of on-line classified ads with which I have never had any association. I was seriously confused! I said I would love to have them and said I would meet her somewhere to pick them up. This from the mom who keeps telling her son to beware of random people met via the internet.

It ended up that she had been saving bread tabs for some philanthropic purpose. This cause no longer accepts bread tabs, so she decided to post her collection on Kijiji to provide them with a good home. A co-worker saw the ad, told her about what we were attempting to do and gave her my e-mail so that we could connect. When she learned that we were at Geary Elementary, she informed me that a co-worker of hers had a daughter at our school in grade one. She sent them with her. That dear little girl came into school a couple of days later with a smile threatening to split her cheeks and a "Madame, look what my mom sent in for you!" Slightly over 1 300 bread tabs. Unbelievable!

The year is nearing the end and I have just about completed their report cards. Each report ends with a friendly note: "Have a great summer! Enjoy middle school. Be kind to everyone you meet. Keep saving those bread tabs!" Yes, I have officially become "The Crazy Bread Tab Lady"!

I plan to go back and tell you some of the interesting events that have occurred this year in our quest for one million, but I couldn't resist writing about yesterday first.

We completed another "bread tab count" yesterday in class. My mother attends a TOPS group every Wednesday and the ladies of this group have been faithfully bringing her their tabs as they consume their grain products. One lady works in a nursing home and hadn't made it to the gathering for quite some time. She came in this week with half of a Walmart bag of tabs. My father delivered them to my home the next day. I was like a kid at Christmas! I knew there were a few thousand just sitting there waiting to be counted.

Friday, I arrived in front of my class, with bag in hand, and asked what they thought might be in it. A "normal" class might have guessed some kind of treat or an interesting object to go along with our study of Ancient Egypt. My little dollies, however, with eyes wide and perhaps just a little drop of saliva in the corner of their mouths cried, "Bread tabs!" With a giggle that I just could just not contain, I confirmed their response.

"Where did they come from Madame?"

"My dad dropped them off at my house, yesterday."

"Wow! Your dad rocks!" I don't believe my 69 year-old father has ever had this said of him before. Although he is a really great guy.

The guidance counsellor was in our room and had never experienced a counting session before. She sat down at a table with a group of students and the counting began. "I have 6 hundreds bags full. Does anyone have 4 more?" "Madame we need another thousands bag!" "We have 43 left over here. Does anyone have 57 so we can make another 100?" Let's just say that I was no longer the only one that had that kid-at-Christmas feeling. The room was abuzz.

By the end of the 20-minute counting session (My kiddies are getting good at this), we had bagged another 7 489 bread tabs. This brought us to a total of 29 905.

We have two weeks left of school, the children resigned themselves, in March, to the fact that one million is just too big a number to collect in one year, which was part of my goal. As a group, they still seem to think that 32 000 might be in reach. I guess we'll see.

Since I began this project, I heard of another teacher in my district that weighed out 100 grains of rice with her students. Then they estimated how much one million would weigh and measured out that amount on a set of scales. Hmmmm, that certainly would have been a way to go, but just think of all the fun we would have missed!

What is This All About?

During the 2009-2010 school year, my grade 5 class and I have taken on a project. In an effort to see how big one million really is, we began collecting bread tabs. Yes, those little plastic tabs that keep your bread bag closed and your bread from becoming rock hard. They don't take up a lot of space, they are light and everyone has them in their home at some point or another. They were most definitely the perfect object to collect to reach one million.

Even I, as a 41-year old educated adult, have a hard time wrapping my head around the enormity of one million. The number is tossed about frequently now with sports salaries, per episode salaries for actors and prizes in the weekly lotto, but it is still a huge number! I knew that my students really didn't have a good grasp of it's size and it was my job as a Grade 5 teacher to help them. Thus the project began.

When we began, my 26 kiddies were absolutely sure that we would have no problem collecting one million bread tabs in one year. After all, there were 26 of them, their families, the breakfast program and the hot lunch program of our small school all tucking away these tiny pieces of plastic. This would be a breeze. I never let on that I believed the project would remain incomplete in June.

The fun began right away. I brought in what I had squirreled away over the previous years to use as Bingo tokens and the lessons on place value began. "Okay boys and girls, begin by putting them in bunches of 10. How many tens do we need to make 100?" Quickly Ziploc snack bags became known as tens bags and sandwich bags became known as hundreds bags. We had slightly over 200 that day and did a quick lesson on regrouping in subtraction to find out how many more were needed to reach our goal. Positive attitudes still abounded.

Small baggies of bread tabs continued to trickle in. Every time our 2 litre ice cream bucket got filled, we had a counting class. "Ones" were stuck to a piece of duct tape, snack bags of "tens", sandwich bags of "hundreds" and, finally, a freezer bag of one thousand. These all got hung on the wall with our place value chart. Every time 10 smaller bags were filled a student announced that they needed a larger bag and regrouping was full speed ahead.

Since those early days there have been many interesting, funny and strange occurences with regards to our "little" class project. A colleague has encouraged me to jot them down and keep track of what happens between now and one million. I hope you enjoy the journey with us.