Chris McNamara (left) and Ann Meers help their Schlegel Elementary School UPK kids show off the cans they collected and their can chain.
Celebrating the first 100 days of school is an elementary school tradition. It’s not only a fun way to recognize the fact that the school year is more than half over, but it’s also a good excuse to practice counting to 100 in different ways and with a variety of items.
Two Webster pre-K teachers — Joanna Sero at Klem Rd. North and Chris McNamara at Schlegel Rd. — came up with a unique way to help their young students mark the occasion, while helping the Webster community at the same time.
On Feb. 4 they began a two-week long can drive, encouraging their students in each of their classes to donate 100 cans of dog food, which they would then donate to Joyful Rescues.
In a letter she sent home to parents, Sero explained the project and how it would be incorporated into the curriculum:
In the past few months we have learned about friendship, kindness and generosity, as well as wants and needs. As we prepare to celebrate love and friendship on Valentine’s Day, we are inviting our Pre-K friends to show kindness to pets in need. … Our goal is to collect 100 cans (so we can work on sorting/counting them in groups of ten)! We will also connect this project to our study of environmental print.
As you can imagine, the students enthusiastically embraced the project. At Schlegel, the students made a canned-food chain, marking each new donation with a new link on the chain. At Klem North, Sero’s class created a pet shelter/vet clinic dramatic play center, and read books about rescued animals.
By the end of the two-week donation period, both classes had reached their goal (although I suspect the teachers might have had a hand in that). Last Saturday, Sero and McNamara — accompanied by many of their pre-K friends — took them all to PetSmart in Webster and handed them over to some very grateful representatives from Joyful Rescues.
This was a great project in so many ways. It was a fun way for the kids to practice counting to 100, and it was a terrific lesson in community involvement. But it touched on so many other skills as well.
Case in point: When Sero told her class that the Schlegel students had collected 96 cans to their 81, several of them said “they’re beating us!” But then one little guy noted, “It’s okay because we are collaborating with them, and the dogs get all of the cans!”
Here are some photos from the can delivery:
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think he’s Snake Eyes Johnson, Public Enemy #1.
I work with some pretty crazy colleagues. Crazy dedicated to students, that is.
