101st Day in K-4

I teach in a small, rural school district, with one teacher per grade level. Our kindergarten teacher found this post from Simply Kinder. Each year in the past for the 100th day of school, we have each had a center in our room, and the students rotate from room to room for about 15-20 minutes each. This could also be done within a grade level, rotating between classrooms.

This year, since we wanted to begin celebrating the 101st day of school instead, we wanted to do something different. We decided to each have a center in the library and allow the students to move around to the centers independently. We did encourage them to partner up and travel with someone (we tried to encourage them to pair with a student from a different grade).

To start the day, we encouraged students to wear polka dots, and the teachers dressed up like the Dalmatians, and of course, one teacher was Cruella de Vil.  We also made a dog house for students to enter when they arrived!

Before school, I also hid 101 Hershey kisses around the classroom. Some were very obvious and others were a little harder to find, but they were not intended to be very difficult. However, we only found 100...maybe I miscounted. I sure hope so! :)

We started with our centers right away. We used many of the ideas from Simply Kinder, and we also combined other centers we had done for the 100th day in the past. Students had a checklist that we hole-punched as they completed our center. They had to complete the list in order to receive a reward! We also had some coloring pages and 100th day STEAM activities that were not included in the stations for students who finished the centers quickly. Many of the students also returned back to their favorite station afterwards! You can see our centers on the list below, but remember that these are the ideas of others that we compiled! This includes Simply Kinder and the worksheet you can see from The Simplified Classroom!

After our centers, we practiced our math skills with some cooking by making Puppy Chow! We were the 101 Dalmatians after all! We doubled the batch and of course used those unit fractions with our measuring cups. I also split the chocolate covered Chex into sandwich bags for each student so they could each shake their own powdered sugar on their Puppy Chow.

I have to admit, I was a little worried about my students enjoying the 101st Day with the 101 Dalmatians theme being in 4th grade. However, we all found activities that were fun, active and creative for all ages, and my students loved it! I even decided to show the 1996 live-action version of 101 Dalmatians, which we all really enjoyed!

I love finding ways to bring fun themes and activities into fourth grade, and in an upper elementary grade where it is harder, the 101st day really gave my students the opportunity to be creative and have fun!