It’s that time again! Do you celebrate the 100 days of school in your classroom? Me, personally, I’ll use any excuse to celebrate and get the students excited about learning! Since I spend most of time in the upper grades, I focus my celebration on reading passages or selections because that’s how you test reading skills. By the way, do you call them passages or selections? This is such a hot topic in my district. Let me know in the comments.
On the 100th day of school, I like to reteach and review various reading skills such as theme, summary, context clues, inferencing, and more in Spanish. I like using fiction, nonfiction and poetry passages because I think it’s important to teach students to read different genres. I took it a step further last year and created a mini packet (in Spanish) that also includes vocabulary practice and even essay writing! My students get so excited that they don’t even notice that they’re doing important and meaningful work. Plus, I get to grade it and put it in my gradebook. Everyone wins!
There’s several ways I like to set up my classroom on the 100th day of school. One year I put up a few colorful, paper banners, and we worked on the mini packet together. However, over the last several years I’ve decided to assign the mini packet across two centers/workstations. This gets my students excited to reach the center and get to work. I make sure to also include a page or two of my mini packet at my small group table. Surprise! My students are always shocked when they see that working with me also has its benefits! More importantly, I make sure every students gets their turn at each center/workstation and at my small group table. Everyone should be allowed to participate on the 100th day of school.
Although this may sound like a lot, let me be transparent and say that I don’t go overboard with the decor and planning. I have so much on my plate, the last thing I need is to let my cup run dry. I decorate in moderation. What does this mean? Well, if it takes me longer than 10 minutes to make the decorations and hang them up, then it’s not worth it. It actually takes me about 5-7 minutes to hang up a few colorful banners and print out copies of my 100 Days of School packet. My campus also invites students to dress up like they’re 100 years old! I always dress up with whatever I have lying around my house. Again, as long as it doesn’t take too much effort on my end. My advice? Create a rule on how long you want to take and stick to it. For me, 10 minutes is too long, but for you 20 minutes might be ideal. Only you can decide how much time you want to spend behind the scenes.
Does your campus celebrate the day by inviting the students to dress up or having an indoor parade? I think if we want students to get excited and build a good connection with learning, we have to put in a little effort to make it happen for them.
What do you think? Will you be celebrating the 100 days of school this year? Let me know!
The mini packet I discussed in this blog post is linked below, just click on the photo. I also created a free version for those of you who teach the lower grades! Happy teaching!
