Math for the 100th Day of School

(For Older Kids Too)

Are you ready to celebrate the 100th Day of School but want some creative hands on activities that will build your kids’ mathematical thinking? Do you teach older kids that still want to celebrate and need to find some higher level activities that go beyond counting to 100? Here are some of the best resources for choosing your activities.

Hands On Activities for Elementary School

Math Geek Mama has a fabulously comprehensive list of 100 Math Ideas for the 100th Day of School. Although she is a homeschool parent, many of the activities will work well in the elementary classroom. She has them sorted by Counting to 100 Activities, Math With a Hundred Chart, Skip Counting and Multiplication, Estimation and Measurement, STEM, Math Art, Combining Math and Reading, and Printables. This list is by far the best I have found for a math focus and high quality, hands on activities.

Not enough there? Playdough to Plato has 25 more creative ideas, including free printable mats to make 100th day trail mix.

Printables

Just looking for printables? B -Inspired Mama has 100 FREE 100th Day printables for preschool through primary grades.

Activities for Older Students

Finding appropriate activities for upper elementary and middle school is harder as many teachers don’t see the need to celebrate, but why let the little kids have all the fun? Mathwire is one of my favorite sources for math activities that encourage mathematical thinking, For the 100th day it has a collection of activities, including many appropriate for older kids (particularly the logic problems).This blog described some 100th day activities done by 5th and 6th graders in Nebraska. The New York Times wrote 100 Ways to Celebrate the 100th Day with ideas appropriate for middle and high school. Some of these include making an infographic of percentage based statistics, graphing stock price changes over the last 100 days, or researching how the Greeks did math in 100 B.C.

A few other ideas for older kids:

• Have them choose how to spend $100
• Create equations or word problems with the answer 100,
• Predict how long it would take to do 100 jumping jacks or jumping rope 100 times and then testing (or timing how many times you could jump in 100 seconds)
• Estimate and then measure a stack of 100 pennies or other objects
• Predict how far out of the room you will get by taking 100 steps
• Work together to make a class book of 100 Things We Have Learned