3 EASY Activities That Will Make Your 100th Day Celebration Fun

The 100th Day of School can be one of the most fun celebrations in your Kindergarten class. It's a BIG deal in Kindergarten and sometimes in first grade. You count up from the first day of school to the 100th day and it's here! Kids love the counting up to the day and get really excited when the day approaches. I start making a big deal about the 100th day ten days prior. This is when we begin a ten-day count down to the day in addition to counting up to it. The excitement for the day is just all over! Today I like to share some of the activities I have done to make this day memorable for my kids.

1. SET THE STAGE FOR THE 100TH DAY AT THE BEGINNING OF THE SCHOOL YEAR

I set the stage for this day from the beginning of the school year. It begins when Zero the Hero makes his first visit on the 10th of school bringing us a treat, a note, a book or anything we can use in the classroom. Every 10th-day Zero comes for a visit because he loves the number zero. We call these days "Zero Days" and we complete an activity. On his first visit Zero, the Hero leaves a short note letting us that he will be back every 10th day of school and that on the 100th day of school he will have a BIG surprise for us. This gets kids excited! He keeps coming back every ten days with a new treat or trinket or idea for us to use or do on each zero-day. Pinterest offers lots of ideas about activities you can do on zero days. I often pick things that my kids can do in 15 minutes or less.

Here's a link to a post by Inspired By Kindergarten about some of the activities you can do on zero days. I personally have used this resource from Kreative in Kinder.

2. PLAN FOR THE DAY AT LEAST A WEEK AHEAD

This is so important! You need to know how many and what type of activities you can do in the time you will allow for this celebration. Some questions you can ask yourself before you decide are: Will you have help that day? Are there any assemblies or school-wide activities going on that day that might interfere with your plans? Also, think of your students' independent abilities (this will be important to consider if you do not have extra adult help on this day).  Choose activities that can be done in the time you allow. Also, take into consideration the amount of cleaning time your kids will need to clean up after. YES! Make your life easier and have your kids clean up after the celebration. You will very glad they did!

3. 100TH DAY ACTIVITIES I HAVE DONE IN MY CLASSROOM

• I sent out a letter home a week before asking parents to donate latex balloons filled with helium. I ask for 100 balloons! Yes, parents always come through. They bring them to my classroom on the morning of the celebration. One year, I asked parents to send just the balloons and had some upper-grade kids filled them with air for me. The next morning, I spread the balloons on the floor before my kids arrived on the 100th day! It looked festive and my kids were so excited when they entered the room. That year I had two parent volunteers and that made things more manageable.  At the end of the day, each child took four balloons home. Watching them walk out of the classroom in a line, holding their balloons, was wonderful and it made for a beautiful sight!

• Zero the Hero visits...in person!  On this day, we finally get to meet Zero the Hero. He brings a book to read and tells us stories about how he sneaked in our classroom during zero days. A friend of mine played the role and he did a wonderful job! I prepped him a week before with what I needed him to do and provided him with the book to read. He was excited about the idea and came up with a fantastic costume on his own! His performance was just perfect, he was hilarious and my kids loved him.

• We do some fun math and literacy activities around the 100th day after Zero the Hero leaves.

~I play Jack Hartman's 100th-day video. 

~I read another 100th-day book after the video. The image below shows you some of the books I have read in my classroom.

~ After the reading, I explain the 100th-day centers I have set up on the tables. I like setting up five tables with different activities, some include food...because it isn't a party if there is no food, right?! These activities vary each year, depending on my kids' abilities and behaviors. Some of these activities include 100th-day snack sort, if I had $100 writing (this is differentiated for those kiddos that can't write), paint 100 gumballs (circles) in a gumball machine printable (You can use Q-tips for this activity),  and 100th day beaded necklace. Throughout the day, we work on completing our 100th Day Fitness printable. Some of the fitness exercises we do include: 10 jumps, 10 sits ups, 10 toe touches and so forth. 

~ To end the day we share our "100 Things in my Bag" from our display wall. To set this up, I sent a letter home along with a small zip-lock bag a week before the 100th-day celebration asking parents to help their child make a collection of 100 small objects that can fit into the bag. All 100 items must be the same type of object but may be different colors or sizes (e.g. 100 beans or buttons of different colors, 100 paper clips, 100 pasta shapes, etc.) You can get a FREE copy of this letter and some of the activities I have shared above HERE or click on the image below. 

100s of GREAT RESOURCES!

You can find more FREE ideas and activities from other teachers HERE or click on the image below.

Happy 100th Day of School, Everyone!