Hundred Day Hoopla!

Well, it's 100th day for me, how about you guys? I hope yours hasn't passed yet so you can use what I'm going to share with you today. There's a good freebie way at the end, I swear! I was fake-watching the Super Bowl with my hubs and casually surfing Pinterest to dig up some 100 day ideas when all of a sudden all of the ideas kind of swirled together into one big mass of OMG I HAVE TO DO ALL THIS STUFF FOR TOMORROW! And guess what? I totally did. And I rocked it out. That's right! Uh huh! Ok, now I just look like one of those cocky football players after they finally make ONE decent play.

You would think that after a bajillion years teaching, I'd just open my cabinet and pull out the 100th day box and be ready. Honestly, though, up until a couple of years ago the 100th day just wasn't a second grade thing. K and 1 did it up big and then we kind of said, "Hey kids! It's the 100th day! Now open your math books." I'm not sure when the tide turned, but now I kind of like it. I think I've figured out some ways to make it more age appropriate than bringing in a bag of 100 things or making a shirt with 100 googley eyes on it. So, after last night's whirlwind last minute brainstorm, I think I've got it really down. Honestly, I think these ideas are usually hanging out in my brain, just out of reach of my every day consciousness and then just when I need them they get sucked into the forefront. But I dunno, that's just a theory.

First, I decided to make tickets for my kids to wear around during the day so they would know which centers they've already been to. This was a HUGE departure from my normal teachery self. I  am a centers girl, but in a very organized, very structured way. We have charts to follow and set times and a smooth transition and it works - but it's also something I worked out over weeks and years, not during the second half of the Super Bowl but it actually worked really well. I think it was because I had so many places for them to go and they were all fun activities. After they finished one of the activities they would show me and then I made a hole punch next to it on their ticket. They just moved around the room like this until they completed each activity. It seriously took ALL day!
You can see the list of activities on the ticket. Most of them are self explanatory, but I'll elaborate a bit more on some. I set up each activity in a different spot in the room and left a direction card and all the stuff for the center there. Of course I gave an overview before they started too. Here's an idea of what a station looked like. This was the estimate jar activity:

I raided my kitchen and emptied a bunch of perfectly fine old spices so that I could fill them with random objects that I raided from other parts of the house. I put a number on each bottle and they had to record what was inside and whether they thought the amount was greater or less than 100. I also had them make an estimate. At the end of the day we went over the results together. See that itty bitty jar, #8? It held 500 pieces of rice! They freaked over that one.

We also made a googol (which is a 1 followed by 100 zeroes). I hung out at that station most of the time. They wrote the googol on adding machine tape with the help of a friend and then I taped it to a popsicle stick and wrapped a rubber band around it to take home:

We made 100 gum ball fingerprints thanks to the printable from Making Learning Fun, and the super cute I-Spy activity came from this awesome freebie from Teacher's Chatterbox!

Ok, I think I credited all the super generous shares I found (where else) on Pinterest. Oh wait, there's more! If there was a time when too many kids were at one center, they could go use the bingo markers to decorate a folder with 100 dots, and we ended the day with this awesome 100th Day News you can find here thanks to Teaching Heart :)

I just barely had time to squeeze in a read aloud of The 100th Day of School from the Black Lagoon (SUPER cute book, btw - lots of figurative language that I would have discussed more if I wasn't racing out the door as I was finishing it)




Ok, if you would like the ticket & signs I put out at each center, just click {HERE} to download them from Google Docs. The recording sheet for the bottle activity is {HERE}. Even if you just use them for inspiration for your own stuff, I hope they come in handy!

PS The sheets for the dice rolls, coin flips and homework are in my TpT store. I feel bad, but those were one of the very first things I listed on tpt last year. I went back and forth about making them free, but I felt bad about all the people who already purchased them. If you're interested, those are {HERE} for $2, but feel free to recreate them yourself. I hope all the other freebie stuff makes up for it!

Now I think I deserve a 100 minute nap or 100 chocolate chips or a 100 minute massage...