I am always looking for things to do in my classroom that makes the learning that my students do meaningful to them. Basically, I want them to feel like there is a purpose behind what they are doing and I want that purpose to originate from them and not me. I began a conversation with my students about collections earlier this year. They were so excited to share the different types of things that they collect at home There was definitely a buzz in the air when we were discussing it. Eventually, we came to the idea of starting a collection in our classroom. Several suggestions were made and a vote was taken. The morning class first decided to collect acorns. We were dropping them in a mason jar as they brought them in. Unfortunately, the acorns had worms living in them...YUCK! We decided that we would just feed them to the squirrels and we switched to collecting leaves (another popular suggestion). The afternoon class decided to collect rocks. I love that rocks even includes a hunk of concrete that one of my students found. Haha!
We have used our collections in several ways. We have counted them by 1's and 10's, we have sorted them, measured them, and observed them. We have also practiced recording what we have counted in several different ways. Who knows what we will do next. I love that it's open-ended and that the students are taking the lead in deciding how we use our collections.
This is the first time that I have done this in my classroom and it's been a great experience. It's a great motivator for learning how to count so whether you are a teacher or a parent perhaps you can try it with your own kiddos.
Oh, and in case you were wondering...our latest count was 101 leaves and 81 rocks!
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