RC - I wish I had 100 peppermint candies.
EO - I wish I had 100 race cars to ride in.
OC - I wish I had 100 Ms. Cassidy's and 100 communities!
ZM - I wish I had 100 marshmallows.
On Friday the children celebrated the 100th day of school. We view this day as an opportunity to count to 100 using different materials and in a variety of ways. The young mathematicians made predictions about different amounts, discussed how many groups of ten in 100, and counted to 100 by 1s. Every day in Kindergarten is an opportunity to count and compare, notice and predict, build and decompose numbers.
We started the day with predicting how many letters in our morning message. We then counted the letters - making sure to not count numbers or punctuation! Even for the advanced letter detectives in our classroom, this was an exciting and challenging task.
Following our morning message work we engaged in 100 exercises. An important part of the experience was following directions. For lunges, we pulsed in place for 10 seconds - we counted together. The athletes practiced having controlled and careful movements. We ended with 10 slow seconds in a child's pose.
100th day dot art provided an opportunity to count out 10 using a different material. This was challenging, as children needed to continue the counting sequence while simultaneously placing a colorful dot on their circle canvas. Some of the math artists shared that they accidentally put 11 dots for one color, so now their work shows 101!
We don't often celebrate with food items, but in our planning for the 100th day of school, there was a shared excitement for making trail mix. Our ingredients were chosen as a community, and with only 10 of each item, it seemed fitting to have some treats mixed in with the sunflower seeds and cheerios. Again, following directions was an important part of the experience. Children were expected to count out 10 pieces from the 10 ingredients, even if they just wanted the chocolate chips. They could only have their snack once they had finished counting and checking their work.
Our afternoon snack was the longest, most engaged, and peaceful snack we have ever had. While the purpose was to count to 100 by 10s and enjoy a special ending to our day together, what I found most intriguing was the idea of working for your food. The success of our snack encourages me to reflect on our community snack time and other ways children can be more independent and engaged during snack. Small bags were available for children to bring leftover trail mix home, but most eagerly ate their favorite ingredients alongside their peers! It's amazing to think that we have grown as a learning community for 100 days and I look forward to all of our days together ahead.
The best part of our 100th day of school?
This conversation;
JF -Well, I guess I won't see you again, since this is it.
CS - What do you mean?
JF - It's the 100th day of school, so we are done Kindergarten. Now we just have stay home days!
CS - We still have more school days together! I will see you on Monday - our last day of Kindergarten is in June.
JF - Oh. I'll tell my mom.
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