Thursday, January 29, 2015

6 Easy Ideas for 100th and 101st Day of School


I love this time of year with my first graders. They know the routines, have gotten comfortable with my expectations, and we have built a relationship. Now is the time to really make learning magic happen.

The 100th day always comes right in the middle of the fun! I want to give you a few ideas to help solidify and celebrate "100" with your primary class.

100th Day!

*100 Piece Puzzles

Go looking at your local dollar store or dollar spot. I have students work in groups to finish the puzzles. It sounds so simple, and it is! 


*Hundreds Hair:

I got this idea from a teaching friend a few years ago. She doesn’t blog (yet), so I can’t credit her with a link.

No template needed!
Use 2 pieces of 9”x12” construction paper to create the band.

Cut 1 inch strips from 9”x12”. I cut them the “short” way, measuring 1”x9” to make the hair strands.
Connect the shorter strips to stick down (or up) from the larger band. Be sure if you attach them hanging down to leave an opening for faces.
Have students decorate with 10 stickers, dots, etc on each strip. As shown in the picture, you can have students group the stickers in 2’s, 5’s, or just decorate the hair in a row. This is a great way to differentiate!
Count by 10’s and enjoy!

*Number Grids

Of course, you can break out the candies or beads or cereal and have students put one bead or M&M on each of the squares of a number grid. To make a trail mix, have the top row be raisin, the second row be Cheerios, the third be M&M’s, etc. Students can make a pattern decorating the number grid in rows of 10’s.

In need of a good number grid? I’ve got several options here for free!

*Glasses and Headbands

A classic option is headbands or glasses. Again, just like the hair, students can decorate them with markers or stickers in sets of 10.
The 100 glasses take a tiny bit more prep because you'll want to cut out the center of the 00's to make the opening for the glasses. The headbands are print, copy, and use!
Hundreds glasses and headbands. (Bonus: 101st Day Headband)

*Dance and Sing

…to 100 BPM (beats per minute) songs!
If you look online, there are entire site dedicated to runner looking for the perfect running song. (It turns out the 100 BPM is a pretty good pace keeper.) Here are some songs. Fair warning, you will want to preview the song before you play it for your class.
Dancing Queen
Sweet Home Alabama
Stayin’ Alive
Man in the Mirror
Eye of the Tiger
If your class can keep a beat, you can have them count the beats for one minute and see if they can find all 100 beats in the minute... or you can just dance! :) 

101st Day!

*101 Top Ten Book










In first grade, I love to focus more on the 101st day of school! Learning that the bundle of 10 becomes a bigger bundle of 10 to make 100 is essential (especially for kindergarten), but knowing that the system keeps going and partially starts over, that's powerful for young mathematicians! I also can’t resist a chance to combine subjects. Writing and math come together in the group writing project (above) in which students make the "Top 10" list for 10 areas, and the #1 thing in their class.

I hope you have a great 100th day! Take a moment and celebrate~ you are more than half-way through the year.

1 comment:

  1. Love the idea of using music and counting the beats per minute. I'm not too musical, but I'm going to pass the idea on to someone who is!

    ReplyDelete