RUNNING NUMBER COLLECTION Classroom Project by Carol Goodrow Parker School 2003 Our running-bib number collection from 1 - 100 was completed on Thanksgiving Day, 2003 with Amby Burfoot's number 2 from the Manchester Road Race. My classroom "running number" program was still going strong in 2003 (7 years after it was started). We still followed the same formula: 1. A child was chosen to write a thank-you letter to the runner. 2. The child's letter would need to include these elements: a sentence that said, "Thank you...", a question about the runner's running, a wish of luck, something about the child's running, and a sentence or two about how the running numbers helped the child with mathematics. 3. The letter would go from rough draft, to edited copy, to final copy. 4. The child would then address the envelope. 5. I'd use my camera to take a photo of the runner's running number hanging from our ceiling and we'd mail the photo to the runner along with the thank-you letter. Parker School (first time around) It was the big beautiful number 349 from my first race, a 1996 fundraiser for Team Hoyt, which got me started on this whole integrating-running-and-academics thing which led to the KR Web site and now the Running Number Math Ribbon Program. I took one look at the red, black, yellow, and blue number and thought about the many ways large vivid numbers could help my schoolchildren with math. I was a teacher and I'd try to relate anything that I did, outside of school, to my classroom - I was always doing schoolwork "incognito". I obtained a bib-number catalog, purchased a set of yellow bicycle numbers, hung them from the ceiling of my classroom, and then started collecting the running numbers to hang underneath. My collection has moved with me from Parker School, to Birch Grove Primary, back to Parker, and finally to Birch Grove Primary again. The memories that go with this collection are many: the kind notes from the runners to my kids, the stories about their running, the trinkets, mementos, and photos they would send with the numbers, the pride each child had when completing the thank-you letter, the gratitude I felt when I received Rod DeHaven's number 10 from the Boston Marathon, the fun we had when Eddy Hellebuyck visited our classroom, the amazement of the kids when they find out what the "100" in Don Allison's Vermont "100" meant, the commotion the kids' letter caused on the Runner's World Forum, and mostly the inspiration each and every number has given my children to run, stay healthy, and to complete their math assignments. With the first number received, we became a running classroom. And the running number collection will always remain as the glue that holds the whole program together.