The 100th day of school is always a huge deal for many reasons. Some of which are being more than half way done for the year (huge for teachers), students get to celebrate all they have learned, and it is an excuse to do fun celebratory activities with our student

s. I am so excited to share 10 ideas 100th day of school activities that can make it truly memorable.

100th Day Attention Getters

My go-to attention grabbers are:

Teacher: “Get it right!”

Students: “Get it tight!”

OR

Teacher: “Get It?”

Students: “Got It!”

Teacher: “Good!”

 

However, for such a special day, why not teach a new, special attention grabber like:

Teacher: “Hip, Hip, Hooray!”

Students: “It’s the 100th Day!”

OR

Teacher: “Stop the talking! Stop the fidgets!”

Students: “Today we hit the triple digits!”

This is just a simple way to get children to stop what they are doing and bring the focus back to you for another activity or a transition.

100th Day Snacks

100th day of school trail mixHaving a special snack is part of so many special days because snacks help us access more of our students’ five senses. For a healthy snack, you can use a carrot stick for the one and two slices of cucumbers for the zeros. For a sweeter treat, get cupcakes with no toppers (no rings or candy unicorns) and use half a gummy worm for the one and two gummy Life Savers for the two zeros and put those on top of each cupcake. Making a trail mix is also a popular activity. Have each student count out 10 pieces of 10 different snacks (beware of possible classroom allergies) and combine them for a fun trail mix. Ideas for the 10 different snacks are:

  • Cheerios
  • Raisins or Craisins
  • Chocolate Chips
  • Teddy Grahams
  • Popcorn
  • Mini-marshmallows
  • M & M’s
  • Red Hots
  • Chex or Life Cereal
  • Gummy Bears
  • Sesame Sticks
  • Blueberries

Of course, there are so many more ideas for various snacks that would fit into a fun mix, but having more than 10 options means that each child gets to modify their own trial mix to his/her unique likes and dislikes.

100th Day Collections

Having students bring in 100 of any one object is always fun but why not take it a step further, make the 100th day a day of measurement. Which objects weigh the most or the least? Can your object create longest line end to end? Which objects can be formed into the tallest structure?

Through the years I have seen 100:
  • Cotton Balls
  • Toothpicks
  • Nuts (from nuts and bolts)
  • Pokémon Cards
  • Hot Wheels/Matchbox Cars
  • Pencils
  • Bobby Pins
  • Coke Bottle Lids
  • Pennies

Of course, this list could take up multiple pages. But when you give your kids too many options, you usually only get collections from the list. When you give ideas, and not definitive lists, you leave room for families to be creative.

100th Day Books

100th day of school bookI love so many of the 100th day books. Through the years, I have bought so many that the school day isn’t long enough to share them with the class in one special day. Some of my favorites are:

  • Planet Kindergarten: 100 Days in Orbit by Sue Ganz-Schmitt
  • Rocket’s 100th Day of School by Tad Hills
  • 100 Snowmen by Jen Arena
  • Chicka Chicka 1 2 3 by Bill Martin Jr, Michael Sampson, and Lois Ehlert
  • Hedgehog’s 100th Day of School by Lynne Marie
  • The Three Little Pigs Count to 100 by Grace Maccarone

100th Day Scavenger Hunt

After the kids leave on the 99th day of school, I get to work and hide 100 objects around the room. In cubbies, under chairs, and on bulletin boards are some of my favorite places. The objects that I hide always match the book I want to focus on that year. For 100 Snowmen, I hid 100 paper snowballs. For The Three Little Pigs Count to 100, I hid paper bricks that we used to build a house. Pairing with Hedgehog’s 100th Day of School, I hid paper hedgehog spikes that we added to a “naked” hedgehog on our wall. For Chicka Chicka 1 2 3, I hid paper apples that we added to a tree. Sometimes I hid items that are numbered so that we had to work on sequencing then numbers in order, and I have hid items that weren’t numbered. The kids love this activity either way. My suggestion is that you hide four or five extras so that you can find 100 or writing down where you hid them because I always end up hiding a couple that I hid so well, even I can’t find them.

100th Day Signatures

One of my favorite activities requires the help from many teachers and across multiple levels. I try to organize a time and location where multiple classes meet in the school and everyone has a book where they collect 10 signatures on each page until they fill up all 10 pages of their book. The easiest way this has happened is if we organize to go to the lunchroom first thing in the morning. You need about 130 kids so that they can walk around and autograph each other’s books! This is one activity that really helps drive home how big the number 100 really is because it takes quite a bit of time to collect 100 signatures and the kids must practice writing their names so many times! One suggestion is that you have your class sign each other’s books in your classroom before the big group meets up. That way they already have some signatures in their book, and they won’t spend their time collection signatures from someone they spend all day with.

100th Day Stations

Having stations set up for kids to work through as the day progresses is a great way to keep students active, and having them interact with a variety of 100 objects stations can be ever better! Use 100 Solo-style cups at building stations so the kids can build towers and knock them down. Using Fruit Loops and have the kids string them onto a yarn to make a 100th day necklace is a great fine-motor activity. Set out 100 mini marshmallows and 100 toothpicks and let kids build 3D shapes with those materials if you have already covered 3D shapes in the first 100 days of math. Have Ziplock bags with a random 100 Legos in each bag that kids can build with is something that they will talk about for many days to come. After building time is up, I have them do a gallery walk around the room to see everyone else’s creations.

100th Day Giving Back

Giving back on the 100th day of schoolSeveral years ago, I started having my class collect and bring in 100 cans of canned food. We use the 100 cans on the 100th day during several activities. The students sort the cans, explain the rule they used for their sort, and then sort the cans a different way. There are several ways students can come up with to sort the 100 cans including: the color of the labels, the kind of food in the cans, the size of the cans, the cans with pop tops versus the ones that don’t have pop tops, and so many more!

Since our 100th day of school is typically within a week or two of Valentine’s Day, we donate our 100 cans of food to local food pantries or to our school’s backpack program which helps sends food home with students for the weekend. The students always feel very proud of themselves when they see the 100 cans stacked together going to people who need them.

100th Day Physical Activities

Since the 100th day of school typically happens in the Winter months, it is often too cold to go outside for recess. To make physical activity part of our lesson, I set the timer for 100 seconds and give the class directions. Then I start the timer, and they have to follow the directions for 100 seconds. Some of the activities make 100 seconds feel like forever and others make 100 seconds fly by! It is always eye opening to the kids that they did all the different activities for the exact same amount of time.

100 seconds of:
  • jumping jacks
  • jogging in place
  • talking to a friend
  • crawling around the room
  • reading a book
  • dancing
  • holding their arms straight out in front of them
  • writing their name

Of course, there are many other things you can come up with and if you do run out, take suggestions from your class! Their ideas are always unique.

100th Day Writing Prompts

There are lots of writing prompts out there, but here are some of my favorites that I used through the years.

  • I wish I could eat 100 _________ because _____________.
  • When I am 100 years old, I think ___________.
  • If I had $100 I would buy _____________.
  • In 100 days of kindergarten I learned _______________.
  • If I took 100 steps from our classroom I think I would be _____________.

I hope that you have found a new idea or were reminded of something that you used to do and loved! As with every day that we are lucky enough to be with the kids in our classroom, make the 100th day count and one to remember because you only have one 100th day with this group of students.