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Celebrate the 100th Day in 100 Ways

97, 98, 99...

100!

One hundred ideas for celebrating the 100th day of school!

Education World offers you the best 100 ideas we've found for celebrating the 100th day of school. Try one -- or 100 -- with your students!

1. Have kids complete this sentence: I wish I had 100 _____________ because _________________.
2. Plant 100 seeds with your students.
3. Ask kids to fill in the missing words: "On the first day of school, I couldn't __________, but on the 100th day of school, I can!"
4. Challenge students to run a 100-yard dash.
5. Have students collect 100 cans of food, and donate them to a local soup kitchen.
6. Read I'll Teach My Dog 100 Words, by Michael Frith, to your class.
7. Challenge students to learn 100 new words.
8. Ask children to estimate how long 100 inches and 100 feet are and check their estimates.
9. Provide a weather map, and ask students to count the places where the temperature was higher than 100 degrees.
10. Have students estimate whether 100 ounces will fill a pint, a quart, a half-gallon, or a gallon container and check their answers.
11. Challenge students to collect 100 of the most unusual items they can think of.
12. Ask kids to finish the sentence "One hundred years from now, ..."
13. Have students make a list of 100 nouns, 100 verbs, and 100 adjectives.
14. Together with your students, learn to say one hundred in another language.
15. Ask kids to count to 100 by ones, twos, fives, and tens.
16. Have children circle the hundreds place in 100 numbers.
17. Have students circle the hundredths place in 100 numbers.
18. Challenge children to locate on a map all the cities that are 100 miles away from yours.
19. With your students, send a postcard to a school in some or all of the cities 100 miles away from yours.
20. Show kids the site 101 Reasons to Move to Albuquerque. Then challenge them to write 100 reasons to live in their town.
21. Have students compare the time it takes to melt 100 ice cubes at several different air temperatures -- inside, outside, next to a heater, next to a fan -- and show the results in a chart or graph.
22. Ask kids to measure the amount of water in 100 melted ice cubes.
23. Have students make a list of 100 things that didn't exist 100 years ago.
24. Together with your class, write a 100-word introduction to a continuous story. Then ask 100 people to add to it.
25. Challenge students to make up 100 word or number problems with 100 in them.
26. Provide materials for kids to make 100 snowflakes.
27. Ask each student to list 100 words he or she can read.
28. Read One Hundred Is a Family, by Pam Munoz Ryan, to your students. Ask them to draw a picture of their families.
29. Challenge kids to find out what happened on This Day in History 100 years ago.
30. Help your students make a classroom quilt with 100 squares in it.
31. Have students count to 1,000 by 100s.
32. Together with students' families, create a cookbook of 100 favorite recipes.
33. Play one of the on-line counting games at Counting to 100.
34. Ask children to estimate what the date will be in 100 days and to check their estimates on a calendar.
35. Help your students list 100 flavors of ice cream, and have them vote for their favorites. Show the results in a chart.
36. Challenge kids to make a list of 100 words that start with C -- the Roman numeral for 100.
37. Read One Hundred Hungry Ants, by Eleanor Pinczes, to your students. Help them make a book of 100 different bugs.
38. Ask kids to write a list of 100 opposites.
39. Help children send 100 cards to a local nursing home.
40. Count how many of the 100 Picture Books Everyone Should Know you and your classmates have read.
41. Challenge students to perform 100 acts of kindness.
42. Help children create 100 legs for a bulletin board centipede.
43. Have kids make a chain of 100 paper links and measure how long it is.
44. Ask students to cut out magazine or newspaper photographs of 100 important people. Create a bulletin board display.
45. With your class, sing the "Counting to 100 Song" from Suggested Activities for 100th Day.
46. Help students learn a game that children played 100 years ago.
47. Challenge kids to find out what a group of 100 parrots, 100 whales, 100 skunks, or 100 lions is called. They can make a book of animal groups.
48. Ask each student to write 100 on a piece of drawing paper and incorporate the numeral into a drawing.
49. Have kids put 100 words in alphabetical order.
50. Invite someone 100 years old to visit the classroom.
51. Challenge kids to do 100 jumping jacks.
52. Ask students to find out who was president of the United States 100 years ago.
53. Challenge students to think of as many addition problems as they can with a sum of 100.
54. Have kids estimate which classroom items, or groups of items, weigh 100 pounds and check their estimates.
55. Can students predict 100 things that will be invented during the next 100 years?
56. Ask children to make as many words as possible using the letters in the words one hundred.
57. Time students as they jump rope 100 times.
58. Assign a number, from 1 to 26, to each letter of the alphabet. Does anyone's name add up to 100?
59. Ask kids to find the numeral 100 in today's newspaper. How many times does it appear?
60. Play a circle game. The first child begins, "I went to the zoo and I saw one giraffe." The second child continues, "I went to the zoo and I saw one giraffe and two bears." Can students reach 100?
61. Ask children to guess which container -- of pennies, golf tees, jelly beans, thumbtacks, etc. -- has 100 in it.
62. Have kids write their names using 100 paper dots.
63. Read One Hundred Eggs, One Hundred Children, a Vietnamese folktale, to your class.
64. With kids, make a 100th day snack, using 100 raisins, 100 M&Ms, 100 pieces of cereal, 100 banana slices, and so on.
65. Play bingo with your class, using a 100s chart.
66. Challenge students to tell 100 jokes.
67. Help students create a sculpture using 100 items.
68. Have kids count 10x10 Jelly Beans.
69. Provide materials for children to make a 100-inch worm and a 100-centimeter worm and compare the lengths.
70. Ask kids to estimate which weighs more 100 rubber bands or 100 paper clips and check their estimates.
71. Brainstorm with your class a list of 100 round objects, 100 square objects, 100 triangular objects, and 100 rectangular objects.
72. Ask children to make a picture using 100 shapes.
73. Collect 100 buttons, and have kids categorize them according to shape, size, number of holes, etc.
74. Have each student finish the sentence, "If I had $100, …"
75. Have students count how many times they can bounce a ball in 100 seconds.
76. Have small groups of students flip a coin 100 times and record the results in a table or graph.
77. Help each child write the numeral 100 with glue and sprinkle it with glitter.
78. Have a beanbag toss. Who can score 100 first?
79. Blow up 100 balloons. Ask kids to arrange them into groups in as many different ways as possible.
80. Challenge students to collect 100 autographs.
81. How many of TIME magazine's 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century can your students identify?
82. As a class project, make a solar system mural with 100 stars.
83. Brainstorm with students a list of machines that can go faster than 100 miles per hour.
84. Have students research animals that migrate farther than 100 miles.
85. On separate index cards, write the numerals 1 through 100. Shuffle the cards, and have children put the numerals in order.
86. Ask each child to bring to school one thing that represents 100 -- a $1 bill, a 100-watt lightbulb, a picture of an athlete wearing number 100, and so on.
87. With your class, visit Zoom Dinosaurs to learn which dinosaurs were 100 feet long, then make a dinosaur book.
88. Find out how many students, laid end to end, would equal 100 inches.
89. Ask each student to finish the sentence, "If I've told you once, I've told you 100 times. …"
90. Read to your class The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, by Dr. Suess.
91. Challenge each child to complete a 100-piece puzzle.
92. Brainstorm with your class a list of 100 U.S. cities.
93. As a group, write 100 compound words.
94. Create a treasure hunt with 100 clues for your class to follow.
95. Challenge your class to read 100 books.
96. With your students, create a mural showing what school was like 100 years ago, what it's like today, and what it will be like 100 years from now.
97. Ask each child to finish the sentence, "One hundred is an important number because. …"
98. Survey 100 students to find out their favorite 100th-day activity. Show the results in a chart.
    And finally, every teacher's favorite 100th-day activity:
99. Sit perfectly still -- and perfectly quiet -- for 100 seconds with your whole class!

ADDITIONAL 100TH DAY RESOURCES

For additional resources be sure to see Education World's special Strategies That Work page: Celebrate the 100th Day of School

PLUS...

One Hundred Days Project
The Teaching and Learning Center at the Joseph Lee School in Boston, Massachusetts, provides ideas for celebrating the day, books to read, original 100th-day stories and poems, and the program for the school's 100th-day celebration.

100 Days
The site includes activity ideas and pictures of the celebration from Marshall Elementary School, in Lewisburg, Tennessee.

Article by Linda Starr
Education World®
Copyright © 2006 Education World

Originally published 01/11/2002
Links last updated 12/16/2006