Tuesday, February 6, 2007

100th Day School Projects

Helping my kids with their schoolwork is a great way for me to stay involved with their lives. Helping with nightly homework may be tedious and unmemorable, but working with them on a school project is usually a positive experience for each of us and creates more of a lasting memory. How many of you remember your science fair projects from elementary or junior high school? I do!

A trend recently has been for kids to do projects for school that celebrate their 100th day of school. This is happening in the early years, usually kindergarten or first grade. With a little creativity, this has been something fun that my kids and I have done together.

When Bess did her 100th day project a few years ago, she wanted to bake cookies. So together we mixed up several batches of chocolate chip cookies. Bess helped me mix the dough, place the dough on the pan, and even helped to transfer the baked cookies off the cookie tray to cool. This project took a couple hours and was definitely a fun time.

Last weekend, I found out that Rae had a project due for her 100th day of kindergarten. I asked her what she wanted to do and she wanted to do cookies (like her sister). Well we without any warning we didn't quite have the time or the ingredients to make that many cookies, so I suggested Jello Beans. Rae was quick to agree.

Each tray holds about 80 so we had to make 2 trays (red and yellow) and we had some left over for our family. Rae helped me stir the jello, she helped me pour it into the mold, and she counted out 100 beans when we were done.

When I first got divorced, I wasn't much of a cook. I'm still not, but I have learned how to prepare a few things that the kids really enjoy. Jello is pretty easy to make and is always a hit with the kids. Especially using any one of the numerous molds available.

What others do will depend on the age and interests of their children, but for us this was much more fun than counting 100 pennies, 100 buttons, or 100 cheerios.

Getting involved with school projects is a great way for me to bond with my kids and let them know that I care about them, and also that their schoolwork is important. I highly recommend it!

4 comments:

Megan Bayliss said...

Hi Kevin
that's a really lovely thing to do with the girls.
I have not heard of a 100 day project (I'm in Australia - came to you via Carnival of Family Life) but it just sounds lovely.
Megan

KevinL said...

Thanks for the kind words Megan!

Lisa @ Let's Talk Babies said...

I have never heard of the 100th day project. Sounds like you take a lot of time to just be with your kids and help them grow.

Here via the carnival of family life.

Doctor Binary said...

Counting 100 Cheerios is a lot more fun when you do it in binary! That's what we did for my son's 100-day first grade project. Here's a description: http://www.exploringbinary.com/one-hundred-cheerios-in-binary/.

I've been teaching him binary numbers and was trying to think of something original. I did the binary translation of course, but he helped lay it out and he glued them all on. It was fun.