100 Days of School

The 100th day of school is reason to celebrate – especially this year! It’s a big deal to make it 100 days! The kids get so excited and I am too! I’m sharing my favorite low prep ideas to help you and your class!

100th Day Banner

What do five year olds love? Banners with streamers. Yep, that simple. The littles love walking through the streamers as they come in the room, and it sets the tone for a great day.

The night before I just tape the banner up to my door and voila! Instant engagement the second they walk in the door. Since our 100th Day usually happens right around Valentine’s Day too, I pop some laminated hearts on my door to say “100 days of Kindergarten and LOVING it!” Since I keep my door open on this day, I like to have everything match and decorated – and former students love to come back to see the room!

100th Day Crown

During virtual learning last year, I sent home a little kit with a 100th day crown! This year I plan to use them in person for kids do decorate as they come in. They decorate it with 100 stickers, or color it (if we have less time). Then we start our day with an intro to our centers and go over rules for the day – be safe, be kind, have fun! This is where we repeat “10 tens make 100” about a hundred times as a reminder for all their learning that day.

100 Day FREEBIE

I’ve found over the years that the magic number for my centers throughout our half day is 8 – we just don’t have time to do any more and the kids start to get worn out after doing this many in one day! Everything that I mention below is included in a freebie for you to use in your classroom. Click on the cover to get your copy!

I print all the center directions on colored paper in rainbow order so kids know what center they will go to next when they see the color and number. This totally eliminates the “when will I go to the ____ center?” questions over and over. I find accountability to be so important and teaching them little things like this helps build independence.

Grab the FREE Centers pack here.

100 Chart Puzzle

To prep these puzzles, I just print them on Astrobrights paper, laminate, and cut them into different puzzle pieces. (These make a great math warm up for small groups, too!)

Last year when I was a virtual teacher, I gave one to each child in a ziplock bag. We had a timer on our virtual meeting and kids went into virtual breakout rooms to work together and compete to complete the puzzle in time!

100 Cups Challenge

The next center we do is very low prep – just buy a pack of 100 cups and let them build! This is one of my favorites every year because the kids work so well as a team to build a tower, wall, or even a castle. The whole class cheers them on when they’re almost done, too!

100 Pattern Blocks

I usually have a few kiddos who are good helpers count out groups of ten pattern blocks to make little piles on a table the day before. I could out the ten groups of ten pattern blocks and put them in a ziplock bag.

One trick I’ve learned over the years to remind the kids to take a bag of 100 pattern blocks and move to a “special spot” by themselves. That way, the blocks stay in the pile of 100 and don’t get mixed up.

I encourage kids to use their imagination as they create with 100 pattern blocks. I also give kids a recording sheet to draw whatever they created with their pattern blocks.

100 Gum balls

Another low-prep center – just add bingo markers, red construction paper, and paper plates!

This is one of the kids’ favorites because they get to use the bingo daubers! I just print the labels and glue them to red paper, then staple them to a paper plate to make the gumball machines.

I always make extra incase someone’s happens to rip or get lost somewhere during the day. Then, I save the extra for the next year.

**Pro tip: Ask for the paper plates on the first day of school as a parent donation for our classroom supplies so they are ready for this day!

Check out my Amazon list for my 100th day decorations and favorite Bingo markers here!

100 Art

This is one of my favorites! I use the numbers “1-0-0” cut out of black paper on our Ellison machine and have the kids turn the numbers into anything they want – a monster truck, elephant, balloons, silly face, zoo animals, etc.

100 Sight Word Reader

With all the math learning on this day, I had to add in a little reading for my kiddos! I decided to create this 100 sight word emergent reader so they can unscramble, cut, and glue the letters for the word “will” on each page.

Grab it on sale here in time for the 100th day!

Roll and Race to 100

This one is always a very competitive center – and the kids love to race! We review that 100 pennies make $1.00 and talk about keeping the dice on the table in the bin. The kids use dice to roll and then color in that many pennies until they get all 100 colored in. First one to $1.00 wins!

100 Beads Necklace

My students love making these necklaces! I put a handful of the same color beads in a cup, and have ten colors. Kids get to the center and count out their ten of each color and put it in the bag. They start to make their necklaces. These turned out so cute and they loved showing them off!

I like to get this huge bead back on Amazon a few days before the 100th day of school so I have enough different colors for kids to count their groups of ten.

At the end of the day, we love to wear our necklaces and I pull out the “red carpet” aka our red bulletin board paper on the ground for our 100th day Fashion Show!

100th Day Fashion Show

I send out a letter asking families to help their children count out 100 items to attach to a tshirt for the 100th day of school. Children have made so many amazing shirts over the years! They use stickers, get friends / family members’ signatures, cotton balls, and some other amazing creative ideas to count to 100 for their shirt design.