Feb 1
Activities to Celebrate 100 Days of School
With Free, Printable Resources
Depending on your school’s schedule, your 100th day of the school year is likely approaching. Many teachers build anticipation with their class leading up to a 100-day celebration by counting each passing day together, using the opportunity to foster early sense-making in math. If you haven’t been counting days, don’t fret — it’s not too late to calculate your school’s 100th day and start planning a celebration!
When every day of school presents new challenges for learners (and teachers) reaching that milestone warrants a bit of excitement. You worked hard to make the past 99 days of school meaningful and fruitful for your students, and they’ve worked hard to grow and learn. Use the opportunity to build community, foster a growth mindset, and remind your students that there is joy in learning.
Here are a few of our favorite activities to celebrate the 100th day of school in elementary classrooms:
Dress for the Occasion
Build a sense of community and unity during your 100th-day celebration by dressing for the occasion. Some school staff order matching t-shirts to wear for the day, and others encourage students to dress up like a 100-year-old. Dressing up can also be as simple as wearing a cut-out crown, badge, or bracelet. Use the printable template below to have your students decorate, cut out, and wear a badge in honor of their 100-day achievement!
Decorate Your Classroom
If you have the time and space, add a bit of décor to your room to make the day special. Decorate your classroom ahead of time with posters, a themed door, and other small items to welcome your students and kick off the celebration from the beginning of the day. Or, involve your students in the decorating process by organizing an activity that can be displayed in your classroom or hallway. For example, use post-it notes to have students brainstorm, write, and display 100 things they’ve learned so far this year.
To help, we’ve created a printable poster you can hang in your classroom:
Read a Book Together
Select a book for a class read-aloud that is themed around a 100th-day celebration or creatively incorporates an opportunity to visualize and count to 100. Here are some great picture book options:
Practice STEM Skills with 100 Pieces
Have your students build a structure using 100 parts. Many teachers use plastic cups, but popsicle sticks, straws, recycled material such as bottles or plastic bags, or even pieces from a STEM activity kit will work, too. Use the items at your disposal in whatever project framework best aligns with your students’ STEM learning objectives. For older students, try breaking out into groups and adding an element of gamification by challenging each group to build the tallest or strongest structure with their 100 pieces.
For more on planning STEM activities, check out this blog and sample lesson plan from guest blogger and STEM expert Paul Larrea, who suggests teachers new to STEM follow an “Ask, Imagine, Plan, Create, Improve, and Share” phased approach to lessons.
Get Moving with Math
For early learners, consider how you can incorporate movement into your day. A key element of multimodal instruction, movement can help students commit information to long-term memory (and, of course, exercise out some of those jitters and wiggles.) Movement can be worked meaningfully into counting activities, such as jumping 100 times throughout the day, standing up to count out loud, or even counting using fingers.
Movement and multimodal instruction can also be incorporated into math activities beyond counting to explore sensemaking, mathematical reasoning, and mathematical discourse. For example, students may clap every time their teacher shows a whole number between 1 and 100, or a game of “Simon Says” can be adapted to mathematical problem-solving involving 100 (i.e., “Simon says, pat your head if 100 divided by 5 equals 20!”)
Write About 100
Your 100th-day celebration doesn’t have to only be about math — you can incorporate writing activities, too! Have students write in response to prompts that incorporate the number 100, such as:
- If I had 100 _____, I would…
- By the time you’re 100 years old, what’s the most important thing you’ll have accomplished, and why?
- When 100 people come together, they have the power to change…
- Think back to the first day of school, 100 days ago. How have you grown since then?
For younger learners, some teachers have students collaboratively write 100 unique words on a poster or board. You can also use this template as a simple, reflective writing exercise that can be displayed in the classroom:
Collect, Share, and Count to 100
Finally, consider simple activities to help your students visualize what 100 of something looks and feels like. Many teachers ask their students to bring in 100 of an item to share with the class (within reason, of course!) and others provide various manipulatives for students to explore, such as food items like cereal or candy, or craft supplies like pom poms or buttons. Use this printable counting mat to help younger learners manipulate their 100 items:
Congratulations on making it so far in the school year, and best of luck with what’s to come!
For more free activities, see:
For more on mathematics instruction, see:
