Raced our way to the 100th Day of School

Celebrating 100 days smarter is one of my favorite things to do in first grade. It is a big deal that we have made to the 100th day of school and my grade level teachers always set aside this day to do lots of activities involving 100. This year is a little different because the Common Core standard 1.NBT.A.1 has pushed my little ones to think a little higher and be able to count from any number to 120. In the past, my state standards only required first grade to be able to count to 100. The challenge of going to 120 is not unreachable. In fact, there has been no pain in the process. My students have been counting to 120 since the second nine weeks of school. I plan to use this day to celebrate reaching 100, but I will have my students expand their counting all the way to 120 on different occasions throughout the day. The following list contains activities we will complete or I have completed in the past with other classes.

1. I have a master copy of a black and white 100th Day book that I will copy for each student. This book has insects to count to 100 by 1's, 2's, 5's, 10's, 20's, 25's, and 50's. You can go here to get another printable 100th Day book and use it for your students to count and draw items to 100.
2. Provide an assortment of stickers, jewels, sequins, and paper crowns. You can set things up at a large table and use it as a station. Have students decorate their crowns with 100 items.
3. Gather students at the carpet and review how to count and create tally mark sets. Have students help you count and draw tally marks to 100.
4. Ask your students what it would be like if they were 100 years old.  Have them write about it. What will they look like? What will they like to do? Where will they live?
5. Send a note home a few days ahead and ask parents to help donate snack items; goldfish crackers, M&M's, pretzels, Skittles, Cheez-its, marshmallows, Fruit Loops, etc. Ask for a total of 10 different snacks and set these up at a station. Have your students count out ten sets of ten snacks and put them in a baggy. I will have a discussion with them before I allow them to begin getting their snacks. I want them to help me identify that ten sets of ten are 100. I lay out ten paper plates and place ten pieces of a snack on each plate. Then we will count by tens. My ending question is how much is ten sets of ten? (100)

The most important thing to remember for your 100 day celebration is to have a plan in advance and create a schedule. Make sure and allow enough time for each activity. Also, if you choose to do the snack activity, have some type of seat work for the rest of the class to do while you bring 2-3 students up at a time to count out their snack. Check out the pictures and videos in the resource section to see what my class did for their 100th day of school.

The 100th day of school is a great opportunity to involve parents and create a take-home activity for students to complete with their family. Print the 100th Day of School note and send home with your students. You may want to double check the dates according to the yearly calendar and alter the note as necessary. Allow at least a week for students to develop their projects and bring them to school. Their strategic use of items will be their tool to share their knowledge of 100. (MP5). I want them to explain to me why did they pick what they did and did they use a certain method to build their set of 100. Is there a faster, easier way to build sets of 100? Should we do sets of 5, 10, 20? Look at the pictures in the resource section and watch the videos for my students explanation of their collection. I treat it like a "Show and Tell" time and have my students stand up and share their collection with the class.