100th Day of School

Today is Max's 100th day of school. His class had all sorts of fun things planned for the event. One project he had to complete at home.



He had to collect 100 "things"... beans, macaroni, buttons, etc... 100 things to go into this baggy for the teddy bear to hold. We decided it would be fun to have 100 pennies.

So - I grab daddy's change jar and we start sorting the change. At first he wanted to use the pretty silver nickels, but mommy quickly squashed that dream,so back to the pennies we went.

Now - I am not gonna label son with any socially taboo syndrome, but I will say that my son could be called O.bservant C.reative and D.ramatic. I really just laughed off his cute little Max-isms until this little project we accomplished together. As we worked - no - as HE worked on this project - I sat at the kitchen table wide eyed and in fear of my parenting career, because he is gonna pass me up waaaayyyy sooner than I am ready to release the "I know more than you" title.

So here we go - we need to count out 100 pennies. Simple, right? Easy, right? Just count 1-100, right?



Now here is where you go wrong immediately.

First - we must find the shiny ones - only the shiny ones will do.



If you are dirty or broken in any way - sucks to be you buddy, because you do not get to be a part of this extra special project.



Now - we have our pile of shiny pennies - just count to 100 right?

Hold your horses! First you have to line up, 10 pennies in a line 1-2-3-4-5-5-7-8-9-10.



Then you have to count the line of 10 pennies JUST to make sure 1-2-3-4-5-5-7-8-9-10.


"Hey mommy, this one has Abraham Lincoln on it, wait - they ALL have Abraham Lincoln on it...cool!"


Now you have to stack the 10 pennies up - all with Abraham Lincoln facing up.



On to the next line - 11-12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20.

We continue this ritual over and over again until we have successfully counted 100 pennies 10 at a time, not missing a beat. We now have 10 lovely stacks of 10 shiny pennies (all Abraham Lincoln face up) each.

Time to put it in the bag, right? HOLD YOUR HORSES!!! You are moving too FAST!!

First we count by ten to make sure we have them all from RIGHT to LEFT because that was the order we stacked them in - 10-20-30-40-50-60-70-80-90-100.

NOW we put them in the bag - just throw them in, right?!?! WRONG!!! Now we must take them, each stack at a time, and place them in the bag - only this time, we will put them in the bag from LEFT to RIGHT. Now remember - each stack has their designated label already - so - 100-90-80-70-60-50-40-30-20-10-0.



AND TADA!! Project complete! And mommy shakes her head in amazement that it is possible for someone to be more detail oriented that her.