Hip, Hip Hooray! It's the 100th Day!

Hi, Ho, 

Hi, Ho,

100 Days ago,

We came to school,

and we're so cool!

Hi, Ho,

Hi, Ho, 

Hi, Ho, 

Hi, Ho!

That song is how I greeted my students in the morning.  It is pretty easy to pick up and so they joined in soon enough.  I don't know where that song came from.  I have been singing it for YEARS in kindergarten though.  It is quite fun and the kiddos love it.  Do you also sing this song?  Or, do you sing a different one?

We had a such a fun day last week!  I teach in a half day kindergarten situation and it is hard to fit it all in with less than 3 hours of school.  I was wanting to change up some of the activities I did this year, so it was fortuitous timing that I read two blog posts by Cara Carroll at The First Grade Parade and Vickie Plant at Primary Press that gave me new ideas.  Thank you ladies!

To begin with, my wonderful friend and colleague and I (with the help of her student teacher) decided to make the day extra special by creating a walk way for the students.  We were inspired by Pinterest (of course!) and worked late on Monday night making an entrance for the hallway that the students wouldn't forget.  It was great to see the children's excitement and to also watch the parent's flashbulbs go off in the morning.  It was quite the photo op!  We had a carwash for the children to walk through, and then the big 100.

I am also happy to report that the 100 lasted all day!  The students were very respectful and so we rolled it up, stored it in our music teachers large closet, and we will have it again for next year.  The 100 was hard to resist - so we had to take a picture :)  

As the students walked down the hall they were excited to see the outside, and inside door decorations to our classroom.

Let me tell you that it took us a long time to enter and exit the classroom.  They all wanted to walk through sparkly blue, red and gold streamer that I bought from Oriental Trading Company.  A child would walk through, and then the next child would wait until it settled down and then walk through it, and then the next child did the same thing, etc, etc.  It was really cute!

I had stations set up in my classroom.  My students sit at 5 different tables and the tables have colors and shape names.  Here is how I had my centers rotations set up and it made for easy visuals.

The 5 stations were:

1) Puzzles and Cups - seriously - who knew that 100 red solo cups would be so much fun?!?!  This is something I have read about and seen pictures of, but after doing it this year, I will definitely add this to my rotation.  They came up with some pretty cool structures and it was funny how each group reacted differently to the structures falling.  Some yelled, some gasped, and others had blood-curdling screams!  The puzzles are from the Dollar Store and have...........yup..........100 pieces!

2) 100 Snack Station - Like many of you, we had 100 pieces of snack!  Each child counted out 100 pieces of snack - 10 of each snack.  Unfortunately we ran out of time to eat the snacks at school so they took them home.  They sure had fun counting them out!  I used a great sheet that I found online and I can't figure out where it came from to give credit.  Does anybody know?  I'd love to give credit. It was a great organizer!

3) Zero the Hero - We have been using the Zero the Hero packet from Growing Kinders and my kiddos are so very good at tally marks because of it!  They love Zero the Hero and we finally completed our last page of the book.

4) 100th Day Hat - The biggest surprise of the day was that making the hat was the longest center.  When they are allowed to use markers, they always do their personal best!  This cute hat pattern came from a freebie at Primary Press.

5) Ice Cream Cones - This cute idea came from The First Grade Parade.  Cutting out all of this on the 100th Day would have taken for-ev-er, so we started cutting about 2 weeks ahead of time.  We cut out   one scoop, or two, each morning when we arrived.  This was such a good strategy!  On the 100th Day, they glued the ice cream cones on thin orange strips of paper, and then cut out the numbers and ordered the numbers 10-100 on the scoops.  Most of my kiddos were able to order the numbers without a problem.  Yeah!!!!

They sure brighten up our classroom cabinets!!!

Meanwhile, I had a parent helper call the students to the back to paint 100 gumballs.  The gumball base is from The First Grade Parade and the Ten Frame format is from Primary Press.  10 sets of 10 different colors.  They loved it and the gumballs also look great out in our hallway!

Last but not least, we had our 100th Day Fashion Show!  This idea is a great freebie from Maria Manore at Kinder Craze.  So many of my students participated!!!!  It was a highlight of our day.

Never mind that the boy wearing the goldfish glued to his shirt started picking them off and eating them.  Oops!  Glad I caught that right away!  Some decorated the back, others the front, and others did both.  My shirt is pictured at the top of this post.  I put 100 butterflies on my shirt.  I wanted to say something like "100 Days Fluttering By" but the butterflies were so big I couldn't fit the statement.  I had 50 on the front and 50 on the back.  Students used buttons, fingerprints, googly eyes, foam pieces, stickers, and more!  LOVE this idea!  

At the end of the day, I had a collection on my desk from items that fell off of the shirts as the day went on!  Ha! Ha! 

It was a fabulous 100th Day!!!!  I will do many of these new activities next year.

Because our day is so short, we made our Zero the Hero guys the next day.  These are from Growing Kinders and they are adorable!!!! 

My favorite part of the day though was having my homeroom students for the entire day and celebrating math and counting!  My school has a large ELL population so we have transitions for ELD and native language literacy.  Homeroom days are precious to me and the children loved being together all day too!

This post is exactly one week later, but our classroom room is decorated with all of our activities from this fun day dedicated to 100 and focusing on ten groups of ten, tally marks, and numbers!  I hope you also had a wonderful celebration!