The Montessori “Walk of Coins” Fundraising Efforts

The Montessori children’s fundraising event called the “Walk of Coins”, was a staggering success with the amount of ¥51,560 collected by the children. The Walk of Coins is a charity walk thus the children needed sponsors to help them earn the distance for walking. They asked parents and supporters to sponsor them by bringing in as many ¥10 and ¥100 coins as possible to fill up the map of Japan which was made on the floor.  Some children brought in money from their allowance and/or earned the money at home by doing specific chores and/or doing various acts of kindness. 

The ¥100 coins outlined and filled in the areas which were affected by the earthquake and tsunami. The remaining areas of Japan were outlined and filled in with ¥10 coins.  It was both an exciting visual and hands–on learning experience, which also lends itself to a Montessori math activity by counting ten ¥10 coins in exchange for one ¥100 coin, and ten ¥100 coins in exchange for one ¥1000 note.  The focus for this project was in two parts—collecting and walking. Apart from helping the people of Tohoku, another incentive was to collect enough money to walk to a local park and play there for a certain amount of time, which depended on how much we raised. We hope you would agree the children’s efforts with this fun project have allowed them a much deserved playtime!

HOT OFF THE PRESS! The Montessori T-shirts arrived on Thursday, June 2! One of our all-time favorite songs in our Montessori classrooms is “The Alphabet Song”. As fun way of capturing the children’s joy for singing it each day, a T-shirt was designed with the pictures of each letter and below it the children wrote their name according to the beginning sound in their name.  It’s a catchy song and the t-shirt itself is bound to be a winner, too!   

Both fundraising events together brought the grand total to: ¥70,230!!!!