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!