Untitled Document

Hitting the century mark

There was a giraffe with a 100-inch neck.There were googol strips, which contained 100 zeroes. There was a poster with 100 penguins. And there were numerous bags brought in by kindergarten and first-grade students with 100 items, varying from pennies and puzzle pieces to noodles and baseball cards.

All of this was part of Westside Elementary School's celebration of the 100th day of school.

First-grade teacher Marsha Merando read Robert E. Wells "Can You Count to a Googol," teaching children about the origination and application of the mammoth number, which is the number one followed by 100 zeroes.

"We do a project each quarter with our students with mathematics," Merando said. "This nine weeks every year is the 100th day of school, so we concentrate on the number 100."

Students in first-grade classes were given plastic bags and asked to bring a collection of 100 things of their choice. Many brought collections of one thing and their bags were labeled with what they brought, whether it was toy soldiers, candy hearts, rubber bands, pop tops, or whatever came to their mind.

Other students brought assortments of items, which gave Merando and other teachers the chance to teach their students a new word - miscellaneous.

Tatum McManis, a first grader who chose to bring playing cards, said she learned an important lesson from her math lessons and the activities of the day.

"That you can count by 10s to 100," she said.

First-grader Brittany Allee also said she enjoyed the activities of the day, saying her favorite project was "making the zero thing," also known as a googol strip. Allee brought 100 sugar packets.

The first-graders also got a visit from the kindergarten classes, in which the students sang to them about counting to 100. Of course, the first-graders had a song of their own, "The Macarena Count, in which they counted to 100 by 1s, 2s, 5s and 10s.

But the favorite event of the day was the visit by "Zero the Hero," whose alter-ego is Westside principal Ruth Miller.

According to Merando, "Zero" visits the classes throughout the school year with a number of zeroes on her back that correspond with the day of school it is, providing another counting exercise for the children.

"When they see me, they always say, 'I know you, you're the principal,' and I just say "today I'm not. I'm Zero the Hero," Miller said.

The Morning Sun, (www.morningsun.net) January 27, 2006