Today was Music Festival day for the choir at our school. Unlike most schools, our choir is made up of the bulk of our Grades 3-5 team. I stayed behind and looked after the Grade 4 students who were not in choir, as well as those from my own class that stayed behind. As there were not very many students, it was difficult to think of something curricularly relevant to both grades but not totally new, so as to not leave the choir members behind. Hmmm, place value is always important.
We went to the library and browsed and signed out books and then returned to my room. According to the clock on the wall it was time for math! When I mentioned this I heard an ever-so-quiet groan. (Loud groans are not allowed in my room.) There was a rather large box of uncounted bread tabs sitting by my desk. I went and grabbed them and began to teach the Grade Fours about our quest for one million. They were so cute. They knew that this was a Grade Five project and that they were being given a chance to take part in it too. All of a sudden math didn't look so bad after all.
I informed the Grade Fives that it was their job to make sure the Fours did their job properly. The Fives, who by now have lost some of the thrill of the count, all of a sudden became very serious bread tag counting mentors. The race was on! Could they get them all counted before the choir got back from music festival? I loved watching the smiles on the faces of the newest batch of tabulators.
"I've got one hundred already!"
"So do I!"
"Hey we have 700!"
"We have 300 over here! Can we have a thousands bag?"
"We never have fun like this in our math class." (I had to turn around and hope that my shaking shoulders didn't reveal my uncontainable laughter at this comment.)
Before you knew it there were two, three, four...nine thousands bags and wait...yes...ten hundreds bags. "WooHoo we have ten thousand more bread tabs." Everyone took turns pouring a bag into the ten thousands bucket. The container got labelled Counted with the help of the Grade Four Class. The recess bell rang but there were still tabs to be counted. Some of them just wanted to stay in and count, but I am a huge proponent of "kids needing fresh air", so out they went.
After recess we had five Grade Three students join our merry band and on we moved. The Grade Fours explained the procedure to the Threes and quickly began stacking up bunches of tens. More bags of hundreds were created. Tables of students cooperated and soon bags of thousands were filled. We ended the count, after much regrouping and scrounging on the floor for stray plastic closures, with a grand total of 159 218 bread tabs.
UNBELIEVABLE! I want to once again remind you that we started the year with a total of 33 354.5. My little students and their enthusiasm for these little pieces of plastic are just a couple of the things that make me a very happy teacher. It's the little things in life that count!
(By the way, we had only just moved from counting and calculating into silent reading for about 10-15 minutes before the choir returned. Just in case you were wondering.)
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