Step-by-step tutorial
Step 1
In addition to some mason jars we already had on hand, we saved other jars for a few weeks (peanut butter jars, applesauce jars, pickle jars, etc.).
Step 2
Next, my daughter and I looked around the house for things we thought we had at least 100 of. This was great practice for estimating. We chose wooden craft sticks, legos, rubber bands, little wooden craft blocks, pasta noodles, Unifix cubes, coins, crayons and small Lincoln logs.
Step 3
Then we began counting and filling jars. Again, she had to use her estimation skills to choose a jar she thought would hold 100 of the items she was counting.
Step 4
I was prepared to spread this activity over several days but she was really excited about it and filled all the jars in one day.
Step 5
With our wooden craft sticks, I had her divide them into piles of ten, then count by ten to 100 before placing them in the jar.
Step 6
She had to choose a jar that was not only wide enough but tall enough for the sticks.
Step 7
She discovered that we did not have a jar large enough for our larger Lincoln log pieces, but the small ones fit just fine.
Step 8
With all of our jars filled, it was time to find a place to hold our collection.
Step 9
We chose a shelf in our play room and I asked her to line them up from largest to smallest.
Step 10
Below our shelf is our white board, so I handed her our box of magnetic letters and helped her spell out "We can count to 100!"
Final result!
We love the way our jar counting game turned out. And we plan to use it for more practice counting by 1's, 5's and 10's.
