Our 100 Day Celebration

We have been counting the days of school since the very first day. It has been the easiest way that I have seen (Carol's idea). The days are recorded directly on a real calendar.

Throughout the year, we have been working on the concept of 100, and how there are so many different patterns of numerals within the counting. One way that we illustrated the many possibilities was by coloring the squares on a number grid. These photos show you how the children grew in complexity of the patterns. From coloring all the "1's", and the rows of "30's", skipping for counting by "2's" or "5's" and so on, to this diagonal pattern that shows the increasing numbers by adding 1 to each numeral. Also, we tried to keep the pattern of the rainbow colors - definitely a challenging activity!

Leading up to the 100's day, the children chose to make 101 stars. It had to be 101, not 100, but child choice, and because it was important to them, we went with it. We had been studying space, and one of their goals was to practise drawing stars. What a perfect way for them to incorporate drawing practice and math! We practiced drawing a star with one continuous line in the air, then on the white board, and finally on paper. The challenge was to make the star big enough to stretch across the entire paper. The children began drawing stars, cutting them out, and as each one was passed in to me, I called out the number, e.g. "52!" so they could keep a sense of just how much work and time it took to create 101 things. After I received them, I wrote the numeral in big numbers in the center of the star, and then the children colored them. We mounted them on fishing line across our classroom. Now we can count them individually, by two's, five's, and so on. And they fit in with our "space station" environment!

For our celebration we had the following centers:

Fruit loop necklaces with 100 fruit loops (we counted the fruits loops by tens in dixie cups)
100 headbands
Towers with toothpicks and 100 marshmallows
100 day sunglasses
Different ways to make 100 cents with coin stamps

Gym

Before we went to the gym we brainstormed all the various activities that we could do 100 of. We came up with a list of bouncing balls 100 times, throwing and catching, skipping, hula hoops, etc. When we first arrived in the gym I timed the children running for 100 seconds. We then set out the various equipment in the gym. The children could be alone or with a partner and change equipment as they finished 100 bounces, etc.