Celebrating 100 days of school has turned into a big event in classrooms across the world! And… why not? Marking the 100th Day of School provides a great way for elementary teachers to celebrate a variety of mathematical concepts using the number 100 and to add a bit more fun to what can be a rather dreary part of the year in many parts of the country.
Looking for some new 100th day ideas for 2024? We can’t tell youthe exact date of the 100th day of school — it may vary from school to school depending on when your school year started, how long your school breaks have been, and if you have had any snow days — but we can some creative ideas from the teacher team behind all the resources on Teach Starter!
100th Day of School Ideas
Once the winter break is over, the 100th Day of School can sneak up on you quickly. It usually pops up on the school calendar in January or February, which means it arrives just as you’re looking at meaningful ways to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., prepping for Groundhog Day, and of course, planning for Black History Month. Oh, and don’t think we forgot Valentine’s Day and Presidents’ Dayand oh, yes, the Super Bowl.
Phewwwwwww …
Needless to say, we understand why you might be feeling frazzled and out of ideas to celebrate being in school for 20 weeks (aka 100 whole days).
That’s why we’ve put together a few favorites to inspire you!
As an added bonus, just click on the little blue links on any of the ideas below to grab some printables to save you time on lesson planning!
Write 100 Reasons Why
Photo courtesy of first-grade California teacher Jessica Preece
First-grade California teacher Jessica Preece had her first-graders write 100 reasons why they love first grade and posted them on little heart stickies. You can try this idea with your students (of any grade!) to make a whiteboard display or bulletin board.
Create a 100 Things We Love About … Anchor Chart
Skip the stickies, and opt for an anchor chart instead!
Reinforce the concept of community and loving to learn with a simple 100 Days of School anchor chart activity. Challenge your students to think of all of the things they love about being in your class, and write them down one at a time until you’ve created a list of 100 things they love about kindergarten, first grade, or whatever grade you’re teaching this school year!
Harness That Snack Attack
Grab our free 100thDay of School Snack Ten Frames, and have your students practice counting by 2’s or 5’s with some tasty treats like popcorn.
If you use loop-type cereal for their snack-themed counting activity, students can count out 100 pieces, then loop them all on a piece of string to create their own special 100 Days of School necklace!
Create a 100th Day of School Photo Op
Photo courtesy of California TK teacher Maggie Alfaro
California TK teacher Maggie Alfaro fully committed to the 100th Day of School theme with her outfit and decor! She designed a cute balloon doorway display that doubles as a perfect backdrop for some 100th Day of School snapshots. Take a photo with each of your students to create a cute bulletin board display or send them home with your students so each guardian has a cute keepsake of their little learner!
Create a 100th Day Snap Cube Challenge
Snap cubes are a hands-down favorite math manipulative on the Teach Starter team. They’re great for teaching kids to measure length, learning one-to-one correspondence,making 10 and plenty more.
So why not pull out these manipulatives for a 100th Day challenge? Provide students with 100 cubes, and challenge them to see what they can build.
Create a 100th Day of School Costume
Photo courtesy of first-grade Michigan teacher Kallie Johnson
Miss Frizzle was famous for her whimsical school outfits, and Michigan first-grade teacher Kallie Johnson gave the same vibes with her adorable Pop-It costume! Made with cardboard, paint and small plastic balls, the costume is easy to make with items you might have in your classroom already!
Make a 100-Theme Photo Display
Need an incredibly quick and easy 100th Day of School Bulletin Board idea? This one is a snap … literally. Snap a photo of each of your students wearing their own pair of100 Days of School glassesand a matching100 Days Smarter Hat (they’re all printable!).
Then stick their photo underneath one of these 100 Days of School display banners. Easy. Peasy. Lemon. Squeezy.
Take 100 Steps Around the Classroom
Need a mid-morning or mid-afternoon brain break? If it’s the 100th Day of School, that definitely means taking 100 steps around the classroom, and seeing where each child ends up, doesn’t it?
Before you take a break to move around the classroom, we suggest having your studentsmake predictions about how far from their desk or chair they might get with 100 steps!
Make It a Dress-Up Day
We know this is not a fresh idea, but would a list of 100th Day of School ideas really be complete without the suggestion to dress up like a 100-year-old person? The concept is just plain fun, but you can build on it with discussions that build empathy for the older members of your community or by assigning students to research someone from history who is or would be 100 years old today. For example, two different American presidents were born in 1924 — President Jimmy Carter and President George H.W. Bush.
You could ask your students to come into school wearing their finest old folks outfits and maybe even dress up like you’re a centenarian yourself.
Do you have an administrator who is always up for some fun? Ask themif they’ll dress up like a geriatric person and drop into the classroom for a visit that will leave your kiddos giggling all day long.
Skip Count to 100 on a 100s Chart
Honor the origins of the 100th Day of School with a skip-counting activity on a hundreds chart! We had a little too much fun making 100 balls of playdough for our playdough-themed 100s chart, but you canalso have your students count out 100 pieces of candy on a 100s chart like this fun candy-themed chart.
Celebrate Being 100 Days Smarter With an Entrance Banner
Photo courtesy of New Mexico teacher Nathan Espinoza
New Mexico teacher Nathan Espinoza got into the spirit of 100 Days of School with a colorful classroom doorway display, complete with streamers! “We are 100 times smarter and more beautiful.” Giving your students a simple reminder that they have come a long way since the first day of school can make a positive difference for the rest of the school year.
Hand Out 100th Day of School Certificates or Badges
Providing your students with a 100 days of school certificatecan offer each child a sense of accomplishment, and it gives them a “prize” to take home to show off to a parent or guardian.
Alternatively, you can provide a100th day of school badge to each of your students. Use a safety pin or, better yet, copy these templates on sticker paper so that no safety pins are needed! Stick one to each child’s shirt.
Create 100-Themed Memory Books
We tend to spend January looking forward, setting fresh goals with our students when they come back from winter break. Of course, kids often need the reset after a long vacation to get them back into learning mode.
But 100 days into the school year falls just past the midway point, and it’s a good time to look back as well, giving your students a chance to reflect on all that they have learned and how much they have grown.
Challenge your students to write out 100 memories they have made during the school year so far. They can include moments with friends, funny things that have happened in the classroom or specific things they have learned since the first day of school.
Track Your Way to 100 Days
When you’re nearing the 100th Day of School on the calendar, a quick activity that will take almost no time out of the school day is tracking the number of days that have passed and calculating how many days are left until you hit 100.
You candownload our printable 100 Days of School Tracker poster and include it in your morning routine, or use popsicle sticks to keep track of the days and teach students about bundling the sticks together once they get to ten. This is a fantastic way to introduce the concept of place value to your students.
Read 100th Day of School Books
Do you need a few 100th Day of School book ideas for your read-aloud? There are a few that we like to pull out again and again and again, including a few picture books that are specifically about the holiday, plus a few that focus on the number 100 instead.
- Emily’s First 100 Days of School by Rosemary Wells
- Miss Bindergarten Celebrates the 100th Day of Kindergarten by Joseph Slate
- 100 Snowmen by Jen Arena
- 100 Things That Make Me Happy by Amy Schwartz
- 100th Day Worries by Margery Cuyler
Create a “100 Of” Anchor Chart
We mentioned the 100 things we love anchor chart already, but this is a simpler idea that works well with the younger primary students. What would your students want 100 of? Cats? Footballs?
Create an anchor chart with your students listing all the things they’d like to have in serious bulk! Alternatively, you can create an anchor chart with your class showing off 100 words they now know how to spell!
Fill Out a 100 Days of School Mini Activity Booklet
The 100 Days of School Mini Activity Book template makes a fun booklet of activities for students to complete on their 100th day of school.
Activities in the booklet include:
- Students finding the number 100 in a group of numbers.
- Students creating their very own wacky creature.
- Students completing 100 different workouts.
- Students completing the sentence: “If I had 100 legs I would…”
- Students coloring 100 gumballs.
- Students drawing a picture of what they would look like at 100 years of age.
Write About 100 Days of School
Incorporate the 100th Day of School into a writing activity — offering a prompt to show off how much students have progressed in their first 100 days of school.
With the 100 Days writing template, students complete the sentence “I’m 100 days brighter because…” They can then decorate the child’s head and hands and attach them to the writing template to be displayed in the classroom.
Wait for the 101st Day
Do you really want to make a splash this school year? While the other elementary schools in the area are celebrating the 100th Day of School, you could always wait one extra day and celebrate 101 days … with a send-up to the kids’ book (and movie) 101 Dalmatians!
Start reading Dodie Smith’s classic chapter book to your class, and celebrate by asking students to dress in black and white for the day, creating cute puppy dog string puppetsand more furry fun!
