Walgrove Elementary 4th graders are in the final stages of fundraising for a spring field trip to Sacramento. The trip for 50+ students and 10 adults will cost over $17,000, and after successful raffle, bake sale, pledge drive and holiday bazaar, there is around $1000 to raise.
So each student decorated a gallon jug, and began collecting spare change from friends, family, piggy banks and patrons.
After collecting change for a few weeks, counting day finally arrived, and students broke into groups to count it. Each group designed a strategy for sorting and counting, estimated their total before counting, and turned in a tally sheet at the end of the session. This gave them lots of authentic and motivated experience working with decimals to two place values, equivalent fractions, and estimating, ordering and comparing numbers, which are all 4th grade content standards in mathematics.
Students were encouraged to use divergent thinking, and I observed a variety of different counting and sorting methods.
Will the Walgrove 4th graders raise enough money to visit Sacramento? Stay tuned!
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