Van Allen Elementary School celebrates 100 days of learning

MT. PLEASANT - Van Allen Elementary School students celebrated 100 of learning with a day of fun crafts and activities.

As part of their celebration, the school held a donation drive and collected items from students that will be donated to local nonprofit The Fellowship Cup.

At their morning assembly, it was revealed that kindergartners through second-graders, who were tasked with donating toiletries, collected a total of 734 items. Third through fifth-graders brought in a total of 214 canned goods.

Kindergarten teacher Chris Snyder said the school wanted to show and teach students the importance of 'doing for others and showing kindness” in addition to celebrating a hundred days of school.

'We think it's important to celebrate 100 days because it's a big victory for us to that we've made it to 100 days of learning. We've learned our numbers up to a hundred,” she said, 'I think it's important to start teaching kids that at a very young age, to show them that it's better to give than receive.”

Snyder added the school was afraid it would be difficult to reach their goal of collecting a hundred toiletries for donation but students and families 'went over and beyond.”

'We think that to teach them to give, we're starting them young to give them that foundation of being kind and generous and giving people,” she said.

Special activities to celebrate reaching the milestone included making Valentines for local nursing homes. Many of the teachers also used the day for collaborative learning opportunities, which saw students across grade levels working together to finish activities

Sisters Leah and Delaney Anderson, a kindergartner and third-grader, were tasked with coming up with a hundred words starting with the letter ‘L,'

'The most fun part of a hundred days is all the crafts that we get to do,” Delaney said, as she wrote the word 'learn” on her sheet.

Both sisters also participated in the donation drive and Delaney explained it was important because the school will be giving the items 'to people who don't have the money to afford to buy it.”

'My class brought canned goods while [Leah's] brough toiletries,” Delaney said.

'We got over 700,” Leah added excitedly.