Introduction
Each child will be invited to bring in their own collection of 100 objects to celebrate the 100th day of school. You can set up a temporary display in your classroom—a "Museum of 100"—and give children time to share each other's collections. You may even invite family members or other classes to visit your museum.
Materials Needed
- Children will be encouraged to collect their 100 objects from home
- Letter written to families explaining the collections of 100 objects and asking them to help their children collect objects at home to bring to school
- Classroom space to temporarily display your class's collections
Background Knowledge
Your students will have been counting toward the 100th day of school celebration since the very first day of school, so they will be familiar with the idea of celebrating the 100th day. Reading the book
Curious George Learns to Count can be a great way to start brainstorming ideas for all the different things to count in the world!
Children need not be able to count to 100 on their own, because they will be receiving support at home with this project. When they bring the collections to school, they will be receiving support from you!
Teaching
At least one week before the 100th day of school celebration in your classroom, you will want to have a discussion with your class about collecting 100 objects. Tell them that they will each be collecting 100 different objects from their homes to bring in to school for the 100th day. Tell them that their collections will make up a "Museum of 100" in the classroom, which families will be invited to see.
You will want to send home a notice on this day explaining the project to families and specifying the day you'd like collections to be brought in to the classroom. Remember to allow yourself an extra day or two for setup, if you'd like. Brainstorm about objects that they think they could collect 100 of from their homes to bring in to school. Some examples: a building made with 100 Legos, 100 macaronis on a string, 100 buttons, 100 photographs, 100 bottle caps.
You may want to send a list of suggestions home with your letter to families as well.
Activity
The actual collecting of objects will take place at home. As children begin to bring their collections in to school, keep them in a safe place until the 100th-day celebration.
Museum Walk
On the 100th day of school, you will want to set up your classroom as a "museum" before the families arrive. You may want to display each child's collection on his/her table. As families arrive, have them go on a "museum walk" in which they are able to view all the different collections of 100 objects in the room. You may want to discuss with children how collections of 100 different objects take up different amounts of space, depending on the size of the objects collected.
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