Celebrate the 100th Day of School! — Sweet Firstie Fun (2024)

The 100th Day of School is truly one of my favorite days of the year. It’s crazy to say, but I love it even more than my own birthday! There is SO much fun learning to do that revolves around the BIG number 100, and it’s only right to celebrate in a BIG way! Check out how I celebrate the 100th Day of School from beginning to end by reading more below, and grab the entire pack of 100th day or 120th day of school activities HERE!

***You’ll see some photos in this blog post with activities for the number 120 instead of 100. I used these activities when I taught at a school that celebrated the 120th Day instead of the 100th Day because our benchmark number was 120. The activities in my 100th and 120th day pack are the same, just with a different number!***

After our Morning Meeting, I tell students that today is a very special and unusual day because today we will be working on lots of things that have to do with the number 100! I bring them all to sit around my small group table on the floor and I explain all of their tasks to work through for the day. I am very clear about not rushing, and doing good quality work. I tell students if they finish all of the activities on the back table, they’ll have to put their head down for the rest of the school day to rest because these are all of the activities that we are working on.

The activities are placed in trays that can be found HERE, and they are all literacy or math related. I explain each one before letting students choose one at a time to complete. Once they finish the activity, they can move on to a different one. Teachers may ask- what do you do with students who rush? With the warning that I give them at the beginning, I have never had this issue! There are enough hands-on activities to keep them busy all day, and I do stop them periodically to do whole group things together, which I’ll explain more about below. There are also enough stopping points throughout the day (lunch, recesses, Specials) so it works out perfectly. I don’t worry if they don’t get through all of the activities during the day. It’s just supposed to be fun. Read more about each individual free-reign activity that I put in the trays:

• 100th Day Writing Prompts: There are several fun writing prompts for students to choose from. They have to write full, complete sentences and illustrate their writing as well.

• 100th Day Wishes Class Book: I tell students that they need to get this page done at some point during the day, and then turn it into my turn in bin so that we can make a class book of 100 wishes!

• Hunt for 100 Words and 100 Word Search: These are two fun activities that the littles love. They especially love grabbing a clip board to walk around the room to hunt for 100 words to write down.

• Counting My Way Through The 100th Day Book: This is a math counting book that students create. It includes skip counting, tally marking, and lots more! It’s great to review important math skills that use the number 100.

• Collection of 100 Stickers: I use Dollar Tree stickers and place them in the trays with this activity. Students make 10 groups of 10 stickers. So fun!

• 100 Hidden Picture: I have students cut out the numbers 1-0-0 and use them to create a picture. Above, I created a monster truck with my numbers! I love seeing what they come up with!

• Writing to 100: This is a fun station that I keep in a dry erase pocket. Students can time themselves to see how quickly they can write the numbers 1-100. I also have other mats that they use also where they write to 100 counting by 2’s, 5’s, and 10’s!

• 100’s Chart Puzzles: This activity may sound simple, but it’s so much fun, and kind of tricky! I cut up 100’s charts and put them in baggies (print them on different colors so that if you lose pieces, you know which piece goes with which puzzle) and students time themselves to see how quickly they can put the puzzles together. Each one is different based on how you cut it!

• Building 100: These 100 building mats are so fun! Build the number 100 out of pattern blocks, snap cube, pom-poms, and Legos!

• 100 Exercises: Can you do 100 exercises? Students test their limits by seeing if they can do 10 sets of 10 different exercises!

• How Many in 100 Seconds: Students try to see how many things they can do in 100 seconds (frog jumps, jumping jacks, etc.).

Everything that is mentioned above is in my 100th and 120th day of school pack HERE.

Student Pictures

While students are busy working on their free-reign tasks, I call them over to a fun backdrop to take their picture! I get their pictures developed and I glue them onto a folded piece of construction paper with a cute label on the other side. Families love having this super fun keepsake! Such a sweet memory to have!

When I Am 100 Years Old…

This activity is very involved, so I have students temporarily put whatever it is that they are working on (from the free-reign activities) aside so that we can do this together. I bring students to the rug and we close our eyes and try to picture ourselves as 100 year olds! Then we brainstorm a list of ideas about what we will do when we are 100 years old, and I scribe their responses on the board. The responses always crack me up!

I explicitly model how to create this craftivity, and each child completes the writing response first before they gather the pieces and create their own 100 year old self portrait. This makes the CUTEST bulletin board display EVER!

This print and go craftivity is in the 100th day and 120th day pack HERE.

100th Day Necklace

I interrupt students’ work on the free-reign activities again to set them up with a Fruit Loops necklace activity! Each student gets a ten frame mat (10 ten frames), a piece of curling ribbon, and I shake a handful of Fruit Loops on their desk. I make students fill up the mat before they begin putting the Fruit Loops on the ribbon so that they know that they have exactly 100. As they fill up their mat, I’ll shake more Fruit Loops on their desk since they’ll need more.

I needed 2 family-sized boxes of Fruit Loops for 22 students.

Why do I use curling ribbon? It’s way easier for students to push through the Fruit Loops. I tape one end of it to their desk, and just let them slide the Fruit Loops right on the necklace. I make the string way longer than I think it needs to be, so that I have plenty of room to tie it around their necks when they’re finished. I’ve tried making these with yarn and I taped the end of the yearn so that it wouldn’t fray, but it just isn’t the same. Curling ribbon is the winner!

These mats are also part of the 100th and 120th day pack HERE.

So. Much. Fun!!!!! At the end of the day you’ll feel like you just ran a marathon dressed as an old person, and you’ll probably need to order pizza for dinner, but hey, you just created tons of core memories for a bunch of littles that they’ll remember for a long time! You may choose to do a few of these activities, or you may choose to do all of them- and if you need them you can CLICK HERE to grab them all!

Wishing you the best 100th or 120th Day of School!