Celebrate the 100th Day of School!
The 100th Day of School is truly one of my favorite days of the year. It’s crazy to say, but I love it even more than my own birthday! There is SO much fun learning to do that revolves around the BIG number 100, and it’s only right to celebrate in a BIG way! Check out how I celebrate the 100th Day of School from beginning to end by reading more below, and grab the entire pack of 100th day or 120th day of school activities HERE!
***You’ll see some photos in this blog post with activities for the number 120 instead of 100. I used these activities when I taught at a school that celebrated the 120th Day instead of the 100th Day because our benchmark number was 120. The activities in my 100th and 120th day pack are the same, just with a different number!***
I love starting the day by making sure my students feel 100 days smarter as they walk into our room underneath a fun door display! I created this door display out of butcher paper and I cut the letters out with my Silhouette Machine, then I laminated it so that I could use it year after year. Super easy, yet so fun!
Crowns, and Ribbons, and Certificates- Oh My!
As students enter the room and begin their usual morning routine, they’ll get to color a fun 100th day crown to wear, tape a 100th day ribbon on their shirt, and they’ll see a fun certificate on their desk that they can take home to share with their families!
All of these things are available in my 100th & 120th Day of School Pack HERE.
A Hunt for 100 Hershey’s Kisses!
Shortly after everyone arrives at school, we do one of the sweetest activities of the school year: a hunt for 100 Hershey’s Kisses! As students enter the classroom, I let them know that they are going to see sweet, shiny things “hidden” all over our room. I tell them to be careful not to touch, or they won’t be able to do the super fun activity with us when it’s time. It’s the 100th Day of school, but it’s important to still keep your classroom management in full force and to still set expectations and hold students accountable for their actions.
The night before the 100th day, I write the numbers 1-100 on the bottom of each Hershey’s Kiss with a Sharpie. In the morning, I “hide” (really I just set them all over the room in visible places because 100 is a lot of Kisses to hunt for, and if you hide them too hard you’ll never find them all!) all the kisses around the room.
When explaining the rules for the hunt, I give strict guidelines so that mad chaos doesn’t ensue. I stand by my small group table next to a giant hundreds chart, and I tell students that they are able to grab ONE Kiss at a time, bring it to the chart, find the matching number, and lay it on top. A line will begin to form at the hundreds chart as students find the correct spot for their one Kiss, and then head out to find another one. It’s good that a line forms because it makes the hunt last longer, and it doesn’t allow students to run around the room.
I tell students if they run or grab more than one Kiss at a time, they’ll have to sit out at their desk for 10 minutes. I’ve only had 2 students break these rules and they had to accept their consequence. Most students do a great job at following directions! Once the hunt is complete, I divvy up the kisses and let students munch on them throughout the day.
100 Things We’ve Learned
After our Hershey’s Kisses Hunt, we meet on the rug for our epic calendar time (because we count the days of school during calendar, and we finally made it to the big number 100!!!), and we do a fun morning meeting.
Our morning meeting involves the 100 Things We Have Learned Anchor Chart, and sticky notes! I give each child several sticky notes, and they write down things that they have learned about so far during the school year. We share some of the responses out loud and stick them on our chart. So much fun!
Read more about Calendar Time HERE, and grab my Project and Trace Anchor Charts Pack HERE.
After our Morning Meeting, I tell students that today is a very special and unusual day because today we will be working on lots of things that have to do with the number 100! I bring them all to sit around my small group table on the floor and I explain all of their tasks to work through for the day. I am very clear about not rushing, and doing good quality work. I tell students if they finish all of the activities on the back table, they’ll have to put their head down for the rest of the school day to rest because these are all of the activities that we are working on.
The activities are placed in trays that can be found HERE, and they are all literacy or math related. I explain each one before letting students choose one at a time to complete. Once they finish the activity, they can move on to a different one. Teachers may ask- what do you do with students who rush? With the warning that I give them at the beginning, I have never had this issue! There are enough hands-on activities to keep them busy all day, and I do stop them periodically to do whole group things together, which I’ll explain more about below. There are also enough stopping points throughout the day (lunch, recesses, Specials) so it works out perfectly. I don’t worry if they don’t get through all of the activities during the day. It’s just supposed to be fun. Read more about each individual free-reign activity that I put in the trays:
100th Day Writing Prompts: There are several fun writing prompts for students to choose from. They have to write full, complete sentences and illustrate their writing as well.
100th Day Wishes Class Book: I tell students that they need to get this page done at some point during the day, and then turn it into my turn in bin so that we can make a class book of 100 wishes!
Hunt for 100 Words and 100 Word Search: These are two fun activities that the littles love. They especially love grabbing a clip board to walk around the room to hunt for 100 words to write down.
Counting My Way Through The 100th Day Book: This is a math counting book that students create. It includes skip counting, tally marking, and lots more! It’s great to review important math skills that use the number 100.
Collection of 100 Stickers: I use Dollar Tree stickers and place them in the trays with this activity. Students make 10 groups of 10 stickers. So fun!
100 Hidden Picture: I have students cut out the numbers 1-0-0 and use them to create a picture. Above, I created a monster truck with my numbers! I love seeing what they come up with!
Writing to 100: This is a fun station that I keep in a dry erase pocket. Students can time themselves to see how quickly they can write the numbers 1-100. I also have other mats that they use also where they write to 100 counting by 2’s, 5’s, and 10’s!
100’s Chart Puzzles: This activity may sound simple, but it’s so much fun, and kind of tricky! I cut up 100’s charts and put them in baggies (print them on different colors so that if you lose pieces, you know which piece goes with which puzzle) and students time themselves to see how quickly they can put the puzzles together. Each one is different based on how you cut it!
Building 100: These 100 building mats are so fun! Build the number 100 out of pattern blocks, snap cube, pom-poms, and Legos!
100 Exercises: Can you do 100 exercises? Students test their limits by seeing if they can do 10 sets of 10 different exercises!
How Many in 100 Seconds: Students try to see how many things they can do in 100 seconds (frog jumps, jumping jacks, etc.).
Everything that is mentioned above is in my 100th and 120th day of school pack HERE.
Student Pictures
While students are busy working on their free-reign tasks, I call them over to a fun backdrop to take their picture! I get their pictures developed and I glue them onto a folded piece of construction paper with a cute label on the other side. Families love having this super fun keepsake! Such a sweet memory to have!
100th Day Snack
While students are still working on their free-reign tasks, I’ll have small groups come and make their 100th day snack. I created large placemat-sized mats with 10 circles, and students put 10 of each snack in each circle so that they have a total of 100 little snacks to put in their Ziploc bag.
My 100th Day pack comes with a mini snack mat and a list of small snacks for you to ask for from families (donations) so that you can make this snack easily!
When I Am 100 Years Old…
This activity is very involved, so I have students temporarily put whatever it is that they are working on (from the free-reign activities) aside so that we can do this together. I bring students to the rug and we close our eyes and try to picture ourselves as 100 year olds! Then we brainstorm a list of ideas about what we will do when we are 100 years old, and I scribe their responses on the board. The responses always crack me up!
I explicitly model how to create this craftivity, and each child completes the writing response first before they gather the pieces and create their own 100 year old self portrait. This makes the CUTEST bulletin board display EVER!
This print and go craftivity is in the 100th day and 120th day pack HERE.
100th Day Necklace
I interrupt students’ work on the free-reign activities again to set them up with a Fruit Loops necklace activity! Each student gets a ten frame mat (10 ten frames), a piece of curling ribbon, and I shake a handful of Fruit Loops on their desk. I make students fill up the mat before they begin putting the Fruit Loops on the ribbon so that they know that they have exactly 100. As they fill up their mat, I’ll shake more Fruit Loops on their desk since they’ll need more.
I needed 2 family-sized boxes of Fruit Loops for 22 students.
Why do I use curling ribbon? It’s way easier for students to push through the Fruit Loops. I tape one end of it to their desk, and just let them slide the Fruit Loops right on the necklace. I make the string way longer than I think it needs to be, so that I have plenty of room to tie it around their necks when they’re finished. I’ve tried making these with yarn and I taped the end of the yearn so that it wouldn’t fray, but it just isn’t the same. Curling ribbon is the winner!
These mats are also part of the 100th and 120th day pack HERE.
Fun Computer Background
I include some fun printable signs for your students to hold as photo ops in the 100th and 120th day pack! I screen-shotted one of them and set it as my computer background for the day for fun!
Old Lady Kit
This photo is from the year that I was at a school that celebrated the 120th Day, hence the paper that I slapped on over my 100th day banner because ain’t nobody got time to make a brand new banner- hahaha!
I’ve been at schools where we dress up as 100 year olds (is there anything cuter than a 7 year old dressed up as a 100 year old? The answer is NO) and I’ve also been at a school where we had students dress in bright clothes because they were 100 days BRIGHTER! Both were so much fun!
My Old Lady Kit can be found HERE. Super cheap but so fun!
So. Much. Fun!!!!! At the end of the day you’ll feel like you just ran a marathon dressed as an old person, and you’ll probably need to order pizza for dinner, but hey, you just created tons of core memories for a bunch of littles that they’ll remember for a long time! You may choose to do a few of these activities, or you may choose to do all of them- and if you need them you can CLICK HERE to grab them all!
Wishing you the best 100th or 120th Day of School!
