How to Keep Track of Lunch Count
Managing a lunch count can be difficult because people are often everywhere you look in no orderly fashion. Keeping a unch count at school or in a work cafeteria can be fun and a shared experience, it doesn't have to be one person solely responsible for counting. In schools, cards with the child's name written on them is ine way to count heads and to involve children through writing by creating a social interaction between adults and children. Does this Spark an idea?
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Things You'll Need
- Tin
- Magnetic tape
- Camera
- Pictures
- Permanent marker
- Colored painter's tape
- Plastic bins
- Nice cashier
Instructions
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Draw a lunch graph at the beginning of the year. Take a picture of each student on the first day of school, write their name under the picture and adhere the picture to magnet tape.
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Fasten a sheet of tin to the wall as the magnetic receiver and create three columns on the tin: brought, hot or cold. Do this with colored painter's tape. This is not a cafeteria project, this is a classroom activity. When the student enters, homeroom they move their magnetic picture to one of the three labeled columns.
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Dismiss students for lunch and have the teacher count the students in each column and send the numbers down to the cafeteria for counting.
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Set out three plastic bins by the register in the cafeteria. Give each child a craft stick with their name on it as they enter the cafeteria. Let the child choose their lunch and then have them put the stick in the box with the picture of the lunch they chose. Use this with adults in a work cafeteria setting as well.
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Tips & Warnings
The more organized cafeteria personnel are, the smoother the lunch count will go.
Make sure there is a person at the cash register who is good at talking to children. If you get a cashier who will not remind the children nicely to put their stick in the right box, the children may forget and your count will be inaccurate.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Jupiterimages/liquidlibrary/Getty Images
