Crane Count: 384

384 Cranes so far, and the kids are still so motivated! Today was a chilly, drizzly day and I had at least a dozen kids give up their recess time and come to my room to help crank out paper cranes. Some kids have made over 30 themselves. We sat in my classroom in near silence, everyone diligently working while one student counted today's haul. It was so cheerful the day after we started this so see kids randomly pop into my classroom with a handful of cranes he or she had made outside of class. Today I discovered that some of the kids actually got a head start on collecting donations for Japan. They went door to door in their neighborhood and gathered over $100 by themselves! I did not ask them to do that at all, they just went for it. WOW. The extraordinary character of these kids is so moving. I've had a couple of students who are proficient in crane-making teach the others who are struggling, and I've seen the struggling ones gradually become the proficient ones and begin to teach others too.

Paper Crane Count: 331

So far the kids have made 331 origami cranes, on their way to 1000. I think I've figured out what we can do with them as well. We will have to take time outside of school to set up a little booth at a community event or location (like outside of Kroger) to collect donations to help Japan. We will give the money to the Red Cross, but will not use their name or logo.

Crane Count: 183

Yesterday during play practice I had a lot of students sitting and waiting to go on stage for their parts, so I handed them origami paper and told them to make paper cranes. Not only were they more quiet, but they made a huge bag of cranes! It brought our total up to 183. I had to fix about 20 out of the 70 or so they made yesterday, but that's not bad. I had one kid tell me his goal is to make 32 so that he will have contributed his 8 plus covered 3 more kids who weren't able to make theirs.

Crane count: 89

It's going slower than I thought. At least that gives me more time to figure out what to DO with them all! Apparently fundraising for the Red Cross has all sorts of regulations associated with it, so I'll probably have to make some calls.