Today is our 100th day of school! The boys think it is fun to celebrate. We are doing actiovities with the number 100. Counting out 100 snacks. The starfall 100th day of school section and a couple other things. I Usually check out some 100th day of school books from the library but we have been fighting a bug this week (today is the first day that no one has a fever) so we never made it to the library to pick them up. Oh well.
I've never seen the significance of the 100th day of school. It's another "invented holiday" of sorts, that you reach when using Everyday Math, counted by hanging another paperclip (in groups of ten) from the bulletin board to help the little ones see just how many 100 is. Personally, I'd rather recognize the 90th day, because that means we're exactly halfway through the school year....
When you're in the classroom, it's simply a way to emphasize numbers. Every day you add a number to your number line, with the 5's marked in red, and a square around the 10's. You can also mark the odd/even numbers special if you want, or every third number or whatever. And I never used Everyday Math, lol!!! The kids love taking a "day off" to do all the special stuff connected with it, plus the fact that it falls in February, which is really the time of year when they need a break from all the "regular" school stuff!
Yes, it is a silly invented "holiday", but the reasons Jackie mentioned are why I have been doing the 100th day each year. We do a number chart with days marked in different colors to help with odd and even, skip counting and the like. This year we are also doing popcicle sticks for 1s, 10s, and 100s to help reinforce place value. My boys love big numbers, especially 100. And yess this time of year we needed something fun and silly to look forward to and celebrate.
Our 1st year we made a paperchain with 100 rings on the first day... we tore one off each day. I will be doing that again with Rylee and Reagan next year, and also will make an 80 link chain on the 100th day for the rest of the year.
That's a cool idea! Last year my oldest decided we had to start another hundred chart from 101-200. Yep, we had 200 days of school last year. I let him know this year that we would NOT be doing that this year, LOL. Of course this year he is much less into school than he was last year so his wish for days off might have won over his sense of order and wanting to do a certain number anyway We don't have to count days at all here so it is all just for us anyway, but I want to get around 180 days each year since that seems to be the norm elsewhere in case I ever have to prove anything or we move.
Carl and I did that when we were engaged. Every day we let one of his boys tear off one of the paper links.
