It’s a brand new year! 2,021! What a great opportunity for a math discussion about number patterns, place value, and hundreds charts!
We have begun a counting challenge that the kids are excited about and ready to take on. We are counting to our new year – 2,021!
I had been promising my students that we would go for it. I began building excitement about our task at hand back in December before the break. We talked about the fact that when we return to school, it will be a brand new year! The year 2,021….. I asked the kids questions about the meaning of this new year, and we had a great discussion. What does this number mean? Can what we’ve learned about place value and number patterns apply to our new year? Could we physically count to this number? Sure we can! And we will….. Then we will CELEBRATE our accomplishment with a New Year Counting Party!
This counting challenge won’t be a quick and easy task. The students all understand that. It will take us several weeks to complete, and that’s okay. They also understand that we are completing this challenge using hundreds charts. We complete one hundreds chart each day at the the end of our math block. It has become part of our daily routine, and the kids LOVE it! Even my students that are learning online are completing this challenge with us. I sent out a Remind announcement and an email notifying parents about the counting challenge. Then I put the counting booklets that I had made for my online students in the office for parents to come by and pick up… And they ALL did! Every single student in my class is in the process of completing the challenge. And now the other three 2nd grade classes in my school have joined us. I am so excited and encouraged by this activity that pulls my inperson and online students together working to complete a common task!
I chose to print out the hundreds charts, then print and laminate a cover for them, and bind them all together for easy use. You could just as easily print out the hundreds charts, hole punch them, and put them in a folder with brads. That’s what I did last year. Regardless of your method to organize this whole process of completing all of the hundreds charts, it is MUCH easier to print out the charts ahead of time and keep them together in some fashion. A couple of years ago, I printed them out each week and let the kids put them in folder with pockets. Truthfully, it wasn’t as easy to keep up with them as I thought it would be. 😦
This year, binding them together has made it a breeze for the kids to pull them out and work on each day. And the students will have this special counting booklet to keep for ever! They are soooo proud of the work that they are putting in on these counting booklets! And the fact that we will have a party to celebrate makes everything even MORE fun and engaging!
I created some fun party favors for our Counting Challenge Celebration. I printed them out and showed students as I talked up the challege before we started. I’m even looking for a special movie that we could incorporate into our celebration day… We’ll see…
Either way, ALL of my students will receive a special crown, crazy 2,021 glasses, certificate, badge, and treat bag! Once again, I will send out information to the parents of my online students about when I will have their treat waiting on them in the office. We also usually take pictures in front of a special banner that I make to post in the hallway. I think I will ask the parents of my online students to text me a picture of their student holding their completed booklets so that I can post their pictures in the hallway with the other students!
This counting challenge has been a great way to engage my students in discussion about foundational number skills. I believe they will retain these skills better because they are actively working with them and using them each day. I bring up the number patterns we see in the new hundreds chart that we complete each day. Students are able to flip back and forth in their booklets to look at the patterns that they see. We discuss how those patterns continue in the charts as we use them to count each day. These charts can be used for so many review activities in the weeks to come. And EVERY student will have their own chart to work with…. aaaaallll the way to the number 2,021! So, we end up counting into the thousands as we expand our understanding of number relationships and the patterns that we see!
It’s not too late to join us in counting to the new year! We are making it one of our signature projects for second graders to complete each year before they head off to third grade. In Texas, our TEKS require students in second grade to count to 1,200. So why not surpass that! I have a student this year who is so excited to complete this challenge because his brother completed it a couple of years ago in my class. He has seen his brother’s certificate and photo at his house, and is ready to get his own. 🙂
If you are intertested in the materials that we are using, just click here or on the photo below!
Caffeine With Class 
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