Hi! Are you looking to change things up and celebrate a 101st day of school? Or searching for for some ideas or inspiration for a 101st Day of First Grade (or Kindergarten or Second grade)? This article should cover most everything you need in your homeschool setting or classroom!!
In February we hit our 100th day of first grade. Although I don’t remember doing anything special for my 100th day of school as a kid, it’s apparently a very popular thing! Even though we homeschool, I still like to celebrate some of the same milestones that kids might be having at a public or traditional school. They give us something to look forward to and be proud of all we’ve accomplished. And it gives my daughter, Emily, something school-related to talk about with her friends and other kids she meets.
Last year we had a full day celebrating our 100th day of Kindergarten. We had so much fun it carried into the evening when dad got home from work and participated in some 100th day STEM activities!
This year however, I decided to celebrate the 101st day of school instead! The deciding factor in that were all the themes I found revolving around…you guessed it…. 101 Dalmatians! And an adorable t-shirt I found on Amazon that brought some nostalgia from my Dalmatian obsessed teenage years (even though my family never had one… I’ve always had a love for those black polka dots).
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Make it fun with DECOR and MORE!
Emily and I love to decorate and dress up for any type of party! To make this day festive, I bought us the cute matching t-shirts, plus Dalmatian costumes! I wanted just a t-shirt and a tutu, but Emily loved mixing and matching her outfit. You can get 8-piece Dalmatian costume sets from Amazon that come in adult and child sizes (link below to purchase the t-shirt and costume). Each set includes a polka dot tutu, spotted t-shirt, tail, knee high socks, a headband with ears, an elastic nose piece, a bowtie, and a set of temporary tattoo black spots.
For our school room party décor, I bought some black and white pom-pom garlands and a few packages of 6-inch, black paper plates from the Dollar Tree. I hung the garland over our whiteboard with my 101 Days of Fun sign (download your own FREE copy in the link below), and taped the black paper plates randomly all over the room (and down the banister of the stairs, and in the living room, and down the hall… you never know what you might wake up to in our house)!
Note: the 101 Days of Fun sign will print as letter size 8.5 x 11. To print it larger, choose POSTER as the page size in your printer settings and play around with the size you want it to be. I enlarged the sign in this photo to 250% which printed out on 9 pages that I then cut and taped together. The size of my printed sign was approx. 30 inches high by 24 inches wide. You can also have it printed in the size you want at a printing store local to you.
Make it fun with THEMED LEARNING!
I love themes!! Here’s all the themed learning activities and games we did for our 101st Day of First Grade:
101 Days of First Grade – Literacy and Reading
PONGO TO THE RESCUE – 101 DALMATIANS
For our literacy block for the day, I wanted to read The 101 Dalmatians. Not because it was our theme, but because I wanted to send Emily on a hunt afterward to round up 101 little doggies and talk about how challenging (for the characters) that must have been.
Fun Fact!! Did you know the popular version that most of us know from Disney, was based on a 1956 novel? The novel is called The Hundred and One Dalmatians and was written by Dodie Smith. It actually had a different name to start with. The original version is a bit different than the one made famous by Disney, but both are great stories. The novel is the one I originally planned to read for our 101st day of school, however it’s quite long. And I didn’t realize there was a shorter children’s version of it until after the fact.
Now, because of my childhood obsession with Dalmatians, I happened to already have 4 different books on hand and I picked the shortest one called Pongo to the Rescue. In a nutshell, it’s a condensed version of Disney’s 101 Dalmatians. It’s quick to read and goes perfectly with the scavenger hunt game since the story is about rescuing and keeping track of the stolen puppies.
You can get Pongo to the Rescue, or another short version of the story, for way cheap on Amazon, even cheaper if you purchase it as a used book. I’ve purchased the majority of the books we use for school from Amazon’s Used Book sellers, and even if the description says they are only in “good” condition, they have all ended up being in great shape.
101 Days of First Grade – Motor Skills and Problem Solving
SCAVENGER HUNT FOR 101 PUPS
My kiddo loves to hunt for everything, so we do a lot of scavenger hunt activities during school and in general. Last year for the 100th Day of K, I sent Emily on a hunt for 100 chicks, based on the book we read that day. This year, when we finished reading Pongo to the Rescue, she went on a hunt to “rescue” 101 little adorable pups around the house. The “pups” being super cute number cards I made (thanks to Educlips, as always, for the amazing clip art I love to use). I printed them on cardstock paper so they were durable and wouldn’t just blow away in the wind.
As Emily gets older and wiser, I have to be more creative with hiding items. I hid the number cards all over the house, in our school room, as well as outside. Some I left out in plain sight so they were easy to find, others I hid in her toy bins, play kitchen set, the bedrooms, the garage, the dryer, the bathroom, and all over the backyard. I put them in containers in our pantry and taped them under shelves I knew she could see from her height, and I hid them in drawers and cabinets in the kitchen. I also hid them in a few places I couldn’t remember because when you’re hiding 100+ items it gets a teeny bit challenging. Especially when she needs to play the hot and cold game to know if she’s close to finding a card, but I have no idea because I don’t even know where it is!
After all the pups were rescued (or so we thought), we built a hundreds (plus one) chart! I hadn’t originally planned to do that however we needed to make sure all 101 Dalmatians were accounted for, and sure enough they weren’t. Ha. So back to hunting we both went until we completed our chart. I highly recommend building the hundreds + one chart, even if you find all 101 cards on the first go. It’s such good practice for this grade. And it’s more engaging than just writing one out.
You can snag a FREE set of the Dalmatian Number Cards below! The set includes numbers from 1 to 120, so they can be used for many other activities! If you will be using them with multiple little hands, I’d recommend laminating them or using a heavyweight cardstock. If you don’t own a laminating machine, there’s a link below for the one I have that wasn’t too expensive and works great (with NO jamming, yippee!). I am also a big fan of self-sealing laminating pouches if I only have a couple of pages to laminate.
101 Days of First Grade – Exercise / P.E.
Not Simon Says it’s PIP Says…
Our friend Pip the Pup was created by an amazing woman and teacher, whom I get much of my school curriculum from. Pip is a special character that helps make learning fun for those Pre-K through second grade (and beyond) kiddos. Pip has been a part of our homeschool for the last few years so naturally she was included in our 101st Day of First Grade; she also happens to be a spotty dog so she fit right into our theme.
Using task cards, Pip put us through a “Pip Says” workout, and by the time we were finished we had done 101 moves and were sweating! Check out Emily’s high jump!
The task cards are part of a Pip the Pup 100th / 101st Day of School bundle that you can get your paws on for FREE by visiting the Little Minds at Work printable library. You will also find a lot of other great Pip the Pup stuff there too! Trust me, Pip will quickly become your kiddos’ new friend at school.
Oh! Since people have asked, our personal “Pip” (aka dalmatian stuffy) came from this veterinarian kit on Amazon. Of course, you can find many dalmatian stuffed animals online; I’m only sharing this info because my kid LOVES this vet set and uses it to play doctor to EVERYBODY. Seriously. You get a scratch in my house and off she goes to get her kit. It was a bonus when we were introduced to Pip the Pup that Emily realized she already had her own Pip. So if you need an imaginative toy for your homeschool or classroom, and want to bring Pip home, this is a wonderful choice!
101 Days of First Grade – Math, ELA, Art, and STEM
OK so we did a couple fun, busy things in the first part of our morning but then we headed back to our school room to play some games and do a few activities on our usual subjects. I mentioned I love themes, but I am really particular that when I pick a theme, I want everything we do to follow that theme. Fortunately, there are so many themed lessons and activities available on Teachers Pay Teachers and Pinterest, however sometimes you need to purchase multiple items in order to have something within the theme for each subject. And thaaaat can take a lot more thinking and prepping than I have time to do.
I happened upon this 101 Days of Fun packet on Teachers Pay Teachers from Polka Dots Please. I use a lot of the stuff from this specific TPT shop for Pre-K through first grade – it’s all “adorbs” as my six-year-old likes to say. I especially loved this packet because it went right along with our Dalmatian theme, and included all the activities I needed to cover Math, ELA (English Language Arts), STEM, and Art. Plus, a super cute label for treat bags, a 101 Days of Fun crown for the kids to decorate and wear, and multiple versions of a certificate for them to be proud of completing 101 days of school! The prep for this packet was very easy and quick… and there’s nothing better than easy prep, especially when you’re having one of those days, or weeks (or months). Here’s a quick look at the activities from the 101 Days of Fun packet:
For the MATH block, there are a few options to choose from but we played a game somewhat like the card game “War”. Emily and I are both competitive so we played this game a couple of times and each of us won once. The game cards reference a written number and show cubes to represent what makes that number, so they help with practicing place value. Each time we flipped over a card, I had Emily tell me the number and place value (how many tens/ones in the number).
There is also a worksheet to show different ways to make the number one hundred and one. Emily chose to write it out, use tallies, and show a few addition and subtraction problems. You could also use the worksheet to have your child stamp 101 times or stick 101 stickers, or use it as a mat have your child count out 101 manipulatives, or roll out 101 Play-Doh balls. I love using these dry erase pockets for worksheet mats – they are super durable and it saves time from having to laminate.
For the LANGUAGE ARTS block we wrote down 101 words Emily knows and knows how to spell, like her high frequency / sight words, CVC words, and CVCe words. I ended up doing the writing for this one since it was just the two of us, and it was a quicker process for her to say and spell the word and me write it down. I hope that sounds a lot nicer than the real reason which was that my patience was a little thin by the time we got to this activity so I didn’t have it in me to wait for her to write 101 words! Haha! This activity would work great with teams of kids working on a set number of words too.
For another ELA activity, Emily chose one of the writing prompts. As much as she hates writing, she’s pretty creative with it…
For ART, she gave a pup 101 colorful spots. She used crayons and markers for this but using paint on a cotton swab, colored dots of glue, or colorful hole punch circles glued on would make some really cute spots too! The worksheet could also be included in the math block.
For the STEM activity, Emily built a dog house with paper, tape, pipe cleaners, straws, more tape, string, wiki sticks, and did I mention tape? Using the planning worksheet, she came up with her design then built it out; with minimal help from me. And with all the straws and tape her house was ready to brave a storm! She even went back the next morning and added some details to it: a paper bag fence and a dog couch (made from paper and popsicle sticks I believe). She was so proud of her dog house she gave it to one of our good friends as a birthday party decoration and gift! Adorbs!
Lastly, we ended our 101st Day of First Grade with the fun bag of sweet treats (the one thing I forgot to take a picture of) and special certificate (oh wait, it looks like I forgot to take a picture of Emily with the certificate). You will find both in the 101 Days of Fun packet. Side note for the treat bag: I used a handful of mini Oreo cookies however, if your child has any food allergies or you just want to use something healthier, purple grapes, raisins, or black olives would be a good option too.
Make it fun with a PHOTO SHOOT!
If there’s anything kids like to do, especially girls and especially these days, it’s take pictures…of themselves (aka the Selfie)! So one thing I always do is incorporate a fun and silly photo shoot into our homeschool milestones and celebrations. With my kid it’s always a hilarious and exhausting process, but I’m so happy to look at (most) of them when we’re done. Sometimes we get dolled up. Sometimes we’re in full costumes. Sometimes we just use props or signs. Sometimes things go a little sideways. Most times we’re photo bombed by a dog or cat or both, or their butt. But every time, we record great memories! Here’s a few of my favorites from our 101st Day of First Grade:
Thanks for checking out how we celebrated our 101st day of First Grade! I hope some of the resources and ideas mentioned here will make your 101st day of school fun and memorable too!
