100th Day of School Classroom Ideas
Market: Education
It is the start of a new year and in a couple of days, my school and my classroom will be celebrating the 100th Day of School. This day not only represents the 100 days we all have been coming to school, but…. 100 “Good Mornings” and smiles walking into the classroom, 100 opportunities for me to learn more about my amazing students, 100 chances to grow as a teacher, and 100 days of laughing, learning, and exploring together. As a fifth grade teacher, I am going to use this day to reflect on the year with my students and incorporate the value of 100 in new, engaging, and challenging ways. This may be the last time the students celebrate the 100th Day of School since they will be going to Middle School next year #Bittersweet
To start the morning, I will be creating two anchor charts that are similar to Kacey from Doodle Bugs Teaching. These anchor charts will be displayed on Screenflex’s Portable Display Tower on the same side, low enough so students will be able to respond. This display tower is a
wesome as I can move it around my classroom and transform the size/shape to what our work and classroom needs. One anchor chart will say “I wish I had 100…” and the other anchor chart will say “I would not want 100…”. Students will write their name and their answers on each anchor chart as they are walking into the classroom. These charts will begin our “Morning Meeting” discussion. When everyone has arrived…and I have my life in order—AKA attendance, lunch count, homework check-in, etc.—we will begin the discussion! I am SOOO excited about this. In class, we have been working on accountable, purposeful talk. Together, we have been practicing using sentence starters to politely acknowledge we agree, disagree, and desire clarification or explanation. Knowing the cleverness and creativity of my students, we will have a bunch of different answers and the discussion will be very fun. We will talk about how the value of 100 is significantly greater than 1 and even 10, so you would have to love something a lot–or dislike it–to have 100 of that item.
During Math, I am thrilled to have found a resource that will help my students practice skills we will be working on AND relates to the 100th day of school!! I’m going to be using Hojo’s Teaching Adventure’s Division 100th Day of School Puzzle. During this time, we will be focusing on long division, and I know that this puzzle will be a great, engaging way for students to
practice their division facts. The students have to solve the division fact and align it correctly with the answer. When all the answers are aligned, the puzzle will form the number 100. What’s awesome is that this resource includes 6 different puzzle options so I can differentiate for my students!! The link to this resource is below:) I will have my students cut out the puzzles, color them, and glue them on a piece of construction paper as they are solving… and BOOM! We have some more student work to display in our classroom on our “100th Day of School Tower”.
During writing, we will start a creative, opinion piece where students will reflect on what it will be like to live 100 years from now. In a paragraph essay of sorts, students will respond to the prompt: What will your life be like 100 years from now? Consider how your life will be different and how the world will be a different place in terms of technology, inventions, housing, etc. One paragraph of your essay must include what your daily life will be like and one paragraph of your essay must include how the world will be a different place.
When introducing this activity and brainstorming, I’ll be sure to emphasize to my class to imagine that they are still living and “kickin’” 100 years from now. Together, we will brainstorm how life was different 100 years ago in 1919 and how much different it might be in 2119 (WOAH, FEELS SO WEIRD TO SAY THAT). Then, I will allow the class 10 minutes to brainstorm their ideas individually, 5-10 minutes to talk with partners about their ideas and make changes, and then time to write their stories. I’ll dedicate the afternoon to this writing activity as I want to be able to display their work in the classroom on this very day. While students are writing, I’m going to be pulling them aside to transform them into their 110-year-old self. I’ll have some “older looking clothes and accessories” like hats, glasses, scarves, ties & bow ties, and mustaches. Each student will be able to accessorize themselves and then take their picture on our classroom iPads. I found an app called “Oldster” that can turn you into an old person!! (See picture below for an example) https://www.appdecide.com/app/ios/oldster/541888245/
When the students are finished, we will print out their picture and their writing. We’ll do the classic “Construction Paper Border” and glue both pieces of work together to then display. I am SOOO excited that I still have space to show their work on Screenflex’s Portable Display Towers. All of the students’ “old people pictures” and stories will look great displayed with the anchor charts and math puzzles from the morning. I’m even thinking of printing out some “100” emojis (💯💯) and placing them all around the tower to add some decorations. This tower definitely helps me illustrate how clever and imaginative my students are; I’m able to proudly display their work for everyone to see!!
I absolutely LOVE being an elementary school teacher as we are able to celebrate milestones together in the classroom and I can align our content with the celebration. Days like the “100th Day of School” offer a fun way to practice, review, and learn new content, but in a fun theme–sometimes students do not even realize that they are working and learning because they are having too much fun. I LOVE THAT! On the 100th Day of School Celebration, we will not only be using these engaging activities but also reflecting on how great of a year it has been!! Thank you for reading along AND may I wish you a Happy 100th Day of School–we are more than halfway there 😉
