Ezra’s Last 100th Day Project

It’s that time of year for 100th Day of School projects. We learned recently — to our relief and sadness — that they don’t do these projects in third grade so this is Ezra’s last one. And it’s a doozy!

It started from humble beginnings — he became obsessed with collecting bottle caps when we were in Belize over the summer and we brought them home in a ziplock bag. Over the last few months he’s added a few more from the random beer or Mike’s Hard Lemonade consumed at our house. The ziplock bag has been in this, that or the other place in the house until last month when we started talking about what to do for the 100th day project. It was a natural fit, so he started counting to see what he had.

First count

At this point he had 99 caps. Bruce added one more beer cap and they found a couple while they were camping at Joshua Tree recently. A project was born. Now, how to display them …

Bruce suggested we glue them onto a board, but Ezra was insistent that he wanted to be able to move them around and play with them, so glue was out. So Bruce came up with a second idea and built a prototype:

Prototype

Ezra loved the idea. And so did I because it looked so cool I figured we’d get an art piece out of it! Last weekend, it came to fruition. I don’t have pictures of every step, but after measuring and gluing two pieces of Douglas Fir together, Ezra measured out the grid and marked where they would drill the holes. Then the fun part started — the drill press. Everyone loves using the drill press.

Drill press

Finn got a turn as well.

Finn's turn

Next was some careful sorting. Ezra had decided he wanted to group them by type. The biggest groups were Belikin Beer and Fanta.

Sorting

Careful placement …

Careful placement

And done! Just waiting for the plexiglass to be screwed on top.

Almost done

Come Wednesday when he took it to school, he was newly-shorn and very proud of his project.

Proud Ezra

But we forgot one thing — he needed to put his name on it. He was very excited when I answered yes to his question, “Can I write it any way I want?”

Working on the signature

Signature on the back

On Thursday afternoon they displayed all the projects for families to come see. I’m always amazed by the creativity! Here’s Ezra’s with notes from his classmates. Very sweet.

Notes from classmates

I have a few more pictures so here’s a slideshow.