100th Day=100 pieces of mail! and Super Bowl!

Happy Monday!!  It's January (almost Feb.) and it's 50 degrees in Indy!  I'm also excited to share about my friends' 100th Day Celebration in their classroom...and it's a meaningful activity on this grand day!

Two Kindergarten teacher-friends (Callie and Allison) of mine are now at a new building, but I had to share their continued awesomeness.  To celebrate their 100th day they decided to collect 100 pieces of mail.  A couple of weeks before the big day, they Facebooked, tweeted, and communicated their goal of receiving 100 pieces of mail.  Each day, as they arrived, they read them to the students, kept tallies of the mail they had received, colored the states of origin, and laughed about the pictures people sent in of their teachers.

What a fun colorful bulletin board filled with love!  Oh, and the pink card with the "m" is mine! :)

As you can see by the pictures they received cards, letters, post cards, pictures and small gifts.  A close family friend of one teacher even sent $100-$1 for each day they had been in school!  The class decided to celebrate by buying next books for their classroom and having a pizza party to celebrate their accomplishments!   

After the 100th day, they made the letters available to their students to read and use throughout the day.  One class made this really cute Thank You that the teachers could post on Facebook to thank everyone who helped them.  With the hidden faces, I could use it too!! :)

Next year, they are going to request post cards, create a giant map, and map them as they receive them.  You know teachers...they're always trying to find new and better ways!  Thanks Callie and Allison for sending me pics of such a great activity to celebrate 100th Day!

It's Super Bowl Week!

Find great activities for the big week including math games, graphing activities, mapping, comparing the two teams, reading comprehension, and more!  Check it out, have some fun, and make the planning, morning work, and centers easy to prep this week!

Gotta run...entering data tonight (and watching The Bachelor)! Woohoo!

100th Day Excitement!

Well today was a blast!  You know when you have those days when the kids walk out at the end, and you are totally exhausted?!  Okay, well it doesn't happen every day, but today was one of them!  I had so much fun watching my kids enjoy each other, get along, and celebrate 100 days.

I've never done much with the 100th day coming from 3rd grade, but they were asking me all week what we were going to do. I decided to do some last minute things, and was very glad that I listened to my kids on this one.

We start our day with math.  I gave my kids post-it notes and they had 5 minutes to come up with as many ways to make 100 as possible.  Our goal: 100 different ways to make 100!  We were successful!  The kids loved this, and it also helped review concepts of money, place value, three addends, etc.  We went around the room, and if someone called out one of their ways, they had to crumble it up and throw it away.  This definitely encouraged them to get creative so that they wouldn't have to throw them away.

Hard at work, and trying to beat the
 5 minute timer!

Final product!

After we got to 100, we then used a 100s chart to make a smiley face using number clues to figure out the design.  The second 100s chart was Pinterest inspired (sorry, I don't remember who!).  Each student  rolled a die, and colored in that many spaces.  Then they chose a different color, and rolled again.  They colored in that many more squares.  The goal: Figure out how many rolls it takes to get to 100.  

Here is a copy of the sheet I made (remember, I decided to do 100th day activities last minute)!!  Freebie

In the afternoon, we had to figure out how many things we could complete in 100 seconds.  They did things like clap, blink, count to 10, and sit down and stand up in 100 seconds.   I found this online, but couldn't find a paper copy.  I recreated it very quickly!  Don't judge the last minute, "non-blog quality" Freebie!  It gets the point across. :) Freebie

One student trying to write his name as many
 times as possible in 100 seconds!  Their hands were tired!

We finished the day with a 100th day newsletter, but I forgot to take pictures at the end of the day.  Some of them are HILARIOUS!  I'll update with some tomorrow.  Until then...it's Friday jeans day and the Hoosiers are playin' ball!!