Lunch Count Graphing

At my former school we only had two choices... packing or buying. 

My new school has 5 choices each day!  WOAH!  The students have to enter a pin number if they buy AND hand the cashier 1 of 4 choice tickets.

One of my teammates had a great way to track and organize the system.  She uses a calendar like pocket chart and keeps the choice ticket cards at the bottom and then makes a little business card with student pin numbers (K doesn't eat at school so 1st grade is the first line of number entering) and keeps them in the other pocket chart slots.  THANK GOODNESS BECAUSE THOSE K TEACHERS HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING!  I THANK MY LUCKY STARS THAT THEY KNOW HOW TO USE THE RESTROOM, BLOW THEIR NOSE (for the most part) AND STAND IN A LINE WHEN THEY COME TO US!  THANK YOU K TEACHERS!!!

This of course got my reels spinning.... :) 

At first I was just going to make a smart notebook log in but then you have to use those tickets as well.  There is NO WAY that the majority of my first grade students wouldn't lose their ticket if I gave it to them in the AM by lunch time.  Heck- I'm sure confident I'd lose mine too!!!

I won a nice little gift card from reallygoodstuff for getting published in their August newsletter and I thought that I might as well spend it! 

I found these desktop easel pocket charts:

I purchased 2 but can probably get away with 1. 

I made buying lunch choice cards to go in the bottom pocket.

Behind the lunch choice cards I will keep the lunch tickets.

Then......

I will have the students use their business lunch cards and "graph" their choices each day!  This way I get to check off my graphing standards!  I sure do plan on asking "How many more..." type of questions daily!  If they are packing- they will keep their card in a "packing" tub.  I can even ask missing addend questions, "If we have 25 students and 13 are buying; how many are packing?" 

I am mentally checking off so many math standards!!!  I plan on typing up common core related math questions to go with this.  I'll let you know when I do!  (Another item for my to-do list.  Shouldn't it be getting shorter???)

Then before lunch each day as students are washing hands- they can come over- grab their card and the corresponding lunch choice ticket!

Gosh, I'm way too excited about lunch count... but hey- I'm getting pumped for next week!

For those of you that have already started- HANG IN THERE!  The end of a week is coming soon!