Episode Summary
In this episode of the Kindergarten Cafe Podcast, we explore the excitement of the 100th day of school. We discuss traditions, advocate for a growth mindset, and share activities like crafts, counting exercises, and imaginative projects with 100 items. I also reveal a huge pet peeve of mine, something that really, really bothers me.
In this episode, I share:
- Preparing for the 100th day of school
- Shifting the mindset about the 100th day of school
- Focusing on 100 days of learning, not just being smarter
- Fun activities and projects for the 100th day of school
Resources Mentioned:
Connect with Zeba:
- Instagram – @kindergartencafe
- Facebook – @kindergartencafe
- Website – www.kindergartencafe.org
Tik Tok – @kindergartencafe
Read the Transcript
Zeba McGibbon [00:01:32]:
Hey there, teacher friends. I don’t know about you, but I’m guessing some of you are preparing for the hundredth day of school pretty soon. My school, being in the east coast, always started later than so many other schools. So we don’t do the hundredth day until around February, so it usually aligns right before the week before. Vacation in February for us, yes, we have vacation in February. We do not have spring break. We’ll talk about that another time, though. So if that’s true for you, that you don’t have the 100th day for a while, you could totally save this episode until closer to your 100th day
Zeba McGibbon [00:02:10]:
But I think that many of you are celebrating 100th day of school soon. So if that’s true for you, send me a message on instagram. Say 100th day of school. That’s our code word for today. Let me know that you enjoyed the episode or other 100th day of school activity ideas that you have. But today I want to talk about what I do with my students for 100th day of school and I want to let you in on a huge pet peeve of mine, something that really, really bothers me. It bothers me so much. I hate seeing hundred days smarter and I see it everywhere. So I’m on a mission to try and shift people’s thinking a little bit. And I will get into that inside the episode.
Zeba McGibbon [00:02:57]:
You’re listening to the Kindergarten cafe podcast where kindergarten teachers come to learn classroom tested tips and tricks and teaching ideas they can use in their classroom right away. I’m Zeba, creator and founder of Kindergarten Cafe, and I help kindergarten teachers with everything they need from arrival to dismissal in order to save time, work smart, not harder, and support students with engaging and purposeful lessons. I’m here to cheer you on through your successes and breakthroughs and offer support and resources so you never have to feel stuck or alone, ready to start saving time and reducing your stress, all while using effective and purposeful lessons that students love. Let’s get started.
Zeba McGibbon [00:03:48]:
The hundredth day of school is one of my all time favorite days of school with my students. And it’s a day that I really focus on celebrating all that they have learned. And it’s a really cool day for me too, to look back on where they started. Because as we have talked about a little bit here on the podcast, the first couple of weeks, the first really month of kindergarten is so hard.
Zeba McGibbon [00:04:13]:
And they know so little that you get so distracted and bogged down by all the things they can’t do yet because you’re putting in them. You have a mindset of where you want them to be by the end of the year that you’re so focused on and they can’t do this yet. Can’t do this yet. That by the time the 100th day of school comes around for you to actually take a minute and look at. All the things they can do now that they couldn’t do earlier in the year. It’s really awesome. And it’s awesome to celebrate with the kids. So I focus on the hundredth day of school, on 100 days of learning, and I really focus on celebrating all that they have learned. So we make lots of fun crowns. Or like a necklace that shows off all the things they’re proud of learning what they’re maybe most proud of learning. They have choices of reading, writing, math, more academic stuff. And then there’s more, I think kindergarten specific ones of learning to be a good friend, learning to share all those different social emotional skills, listening, raising your hand, stuff like that. So it gives students ideas for all. The types of learning that they’ve done. This year, not just academic ones. And of course we have different books or a worksheet that we turn into a class book on that really has. The students reflect on what they are most proud of learning in these hundred days of school because they have learned so much.
Zeba McGibbon [00:05:43]:
So all that to say I focus on 100 days of learning, not hundred days smarter because that is just icky to be. It implies that they weren’t smart before. It implies that now they’ve learned what they need to learn. And it’s…It just has more of a fixed mindset. And I really want to encourage a growth mindset with my students. And I want to focus on reflecting on what it is that they’ve learned, what it is that they’ve gotten better at and focus on the process that it took for them to get there, as opposed to the finished product of look, I’m smarter now. And it just sort of puts this value and this could just all be my own thinking, I don’t know. But it puts this value on more of the academic stuff. Whereas I think a lot of the important learning that happens in the first hundred days of kindergarten isn’t academic content, but rather how to be a student and how to be a friend. That’s why I love teaching kindergarten, because when I taught older grades, I really missed teaching those foundational skills of this is how you greet someone, good morning. This is how you ask someone to play with you. This is how you share and compromise with a friend. This is how you write your name. This is how you listen on the rug and show that you’re listening and raise your hand to answer questions. You don’t have to do that in.
The older grades, and that’s why a lot of people like teaching those grades. But for me, I missed it.
Zeba McGibbon [00:07:11]:
And so when we just say 100 days smarter, I feel like we negate all of those important skills that they’ve learned. So that’s kind of my spiel about my pet peeve. I just I really don’t like seeing hundred days smarter. So I focus instead on 100 days of learning and celebrating all that they have learned. In addition to celebrating all that they have learned.
Zeba McGibbon [00:07:31]:
We do lots of fun things around the number 100, as I think so many teachers do for the hundredth day of school. There are so many different counting activities that we do. Filling in missing numbers, rolling to 100, kind of like a shoots and ladders kind of thing, finding 100 items. There’s so many fun, different activities that you can do. And if you don’t want to go. Scrounging for all of those activities? I’ve got you covered in my hundredth day of learning product. It has everything that I’m talking about included.
Zeba McGibbon [00:08:03]:
There’s lots of good counting videos. I know go noodle has one. Jack Hartman, always a good resource for counting. And they go all the way up to 100. So those are really fun things to focus on during the day or even the week leading up to the 100th day of school.
Zeba McGibbon [00:08:18]:
Another thing I do leading up to the 100th day of school is I Sent home a homework activity. I always make it optional, but it’s really cool to see what the kids come up with. Project is to make something out of a hundred items in a creative design. And I’ve seen some really cool, cool projects in the past. I saw like a big goldfish tank with fish and stuff inside made from 100 goldfish. I saw a creation made with 100 different legos, a shirt that had 100 pom poms as like a gumball shirt, I don’t know, something made with 100 stickers.
Zeba McGibbon [00:08:57]:
I’ve seen some really, really cool projects. So that’s probably one of my favorite things, is leading up to the hundredth day giving kids a chance to share the projects that they’ve come up with. Also on the hundredth day, we do some fun writing prompts with hundred, like, what would they do if they had 100 of this item?
Zeba McGibbon [00:09:16]:
Or what would they do if they had $100 of? Or what would they definitely not want a hundred of? And they come up with very silly things like, I don’t want a hundred snakes before I’m 100 years old. I want to be a chef or I want to be a master skater. I think it said, I, if I had would buy a mansion. I wish $100 would buy a mansion. I wish I had 100 pokemon. I could eat 100 brownies. I mean, totally could eat 100 brownies, right?
Zeba McGibbon [00:09:49]:
It’s really fun to see the stuff that they come up with in their writing ideas in the fun little hundredth day book. And like I said, then we do a class book together where they are writing and reflecting on the thing that they’re most proud of learning. Or we can get more specific into what are you? What did you learn for reading? What did you learn for writing? What did you learn for being a student? That kind of stuff. And help the students reflect a little bit more on not just the big picture of learning in kindergarten, but helping them get a little more specific with the things they learned.
Zeba McGibbon [00:10:21]:
And I always do a certificate for students that I sign and let them color and shows that they’ve done a hundred days of learning and they’re ready for not 100 more, but the next group of learning. So for us, that’s 82 days, and that certificate is actually a freebie on the show notes. I’ll put a link below. You can get the show notes there. And yeah, you can get the freebie certificate. It says, congratulations.
Zeba McGibbon [00:10:50]:
You’ve had 100 days of learning to be proud of. And that’s sort of the theme. We’ve had 100 days of learning to be proud of, and you should be proud of all that you have learned. So those are all of my ideas for how to make the hundredth day one of the best days all year and how to help students really reflect on their learning and be proud of. All that they’ve learned. And maybe I’ve convinced you to switch. 100 days smarter to 100 days of learning to be proud of.
Zeba McGibbon [00:11:22]:
I don’t know. Let me know. Send me a message or send me an email. I’d love to hear from you. But those are my thoughts on keeping it really focused on reflecting on all their learning and being really proud of how far they’ve come. Because let me tell you, in 100 Days of kindergarten, they have indeed come very far from where they started. And it’s really awesome to sit back and see that progress. And don’t forget to grab the freebie certificate if you are interested so that. You can share that learning to be proud of with your students.
Zeba McGibbon [00:11:54]:
Okay, our quote of the day a child was asked. I’m not really sure why, but a child was asked if they had any girlfriends, and their answer was, I have 99 girlfriends. No, I mean I have a hundred girlfriends.
Zeba McGibbon [00:12:06]:
This was not in context of the 100th day of school, but it is 100 of something. So good luck to that student with 100 girlfriends. All right, well, thanks for listening to this episode on the hundredth day of school. Like I said, send me a message. Let me know when your 100th day of school is and what you plan on doing to keep it fun and exciting for your students.
Zeba McGibbon [00:12:31]:
Thanks so much for listening to the Kindergarten Cafe podcast. Be sure to check out the show notes for more information and resources, or just head straight to kindergartencafe.org for all the goodies. If you liked this episode, the best ways to show your support are to subscribe, leave a review, or send it to a friend. I’ll be back next week with even more kindergarten tips. See you then.