Mac & Cheese In the Bathtub!?!

In conjunction with our Todd Parr visit (click the link to read about the visit), a preschool teacher and I partnered to organize a macaroni and cheese drive for our local food pantry.  In Todd's book It's Okay to be Different, he says "It's okay to eat macaroni and cheese in the bathtub."  Sometimes I have some "off the wall ideas", and at first, this seemed like one of them!

Our kiddos worked together to make signs and flyers advertising our collection dates.  We made a poster for each classroom and a flyer to send home with all students.

One of our custodians had a bathtub from her days with horses that she allowed us to use.  The tub was in our atrium.   If we are going to do this project, why not go all out!  We used a red table skirt to dress it up a bit, and to make it match the tub in the book.  I put blue shiny wrapping paper in the bottom of the tub and added "bubbles" (balloons) until the tub started to fill.

After about 10 school days of collecting mac & cheese, we had a very full bathtub!

We then estimated how many boxes were in the tub.  After estimating, we worked with our preschool partners to stack the mac & cheese into stacks of 10 to make counting easier.  We then worked together to count the stacks by 10s.  The preschool teacher put each stack of 10 into the tub as we counted it.  We ended up with 382 boxes of mac & cheese!  Additional boxes were added that afternoon and the  next morning, but we didn't recount.  We are guessing we ended just under 400 boxes.

The day after Todd Parr's visit, a representative from the food pantry came to pick up our donation.  The kids worked to pack the mac and cheese into boxes and even carried it out to the car.

The kids did an awesome job with this project!  The author visit was a perfect way to introduce the idea of giving to others.  The kid were excited about the visit and were able to relate to the topic.  Additionally, they found this idea of helping others to be fun, which engaged them and made them want to work hard.  I hope it ignites a passion in them to continue to help others in the future.