100th Day Celebration in Kindergarten!

Shew weeeee! I just woke up from a 12 hour sleeping binge. I went out like a light when I sat down on the couch yesterday at 6:00 and didn't get up until 6:30 this morning. If that isn't an indication that the 100th day of school is an exhausting experience, I don't know what is!! 

I can not believe I have been teaching Kindergarten for 100 days! I never thought I would say that, EVER. But here I am, and the view is nice. I love my job. <3  Check out a shirt one of my students wore! The front said, "I survived 100 days in Kindergarten." The big thumbs up means: Yep, this is so true! I'm lucky to be alive. Brahaha!

Here is my advice for new teachers: Prepare, prepare, prepare new teachers! Your first 100th Day Celebration will no doubt feel much the same, especially if you are a Kinder-Teacher! It was one of the most stressful, crazy, fun and utterly exciting days for me thus far. The madness could not be contained no matter how hard I obsessed and tried. LOL. I think the reason is because it is a FULL DAY of events and all the fun has very great instructional value. Not like an end of the day party at which point you can bribe them into being good until the end of the day. (Haha, I totally do that every time!) Nope. You can't make them sit out on instructional time, and basically, my group figured that out after a while! Plus, no matter how wild they were, I wanted everyone to have a good time.  Just do your best, take a chill pill and enjoy. That is what I tried to do and for the most part, it worked. :)

Besides, I might have added to he madness a little when I decided to throw 100 balloons into the mess! I'm not sure where I found the idea (Pinterest, probably) but I decided to try it out. My helpers Ronnie and Shirley so graciously helped me blow up (without a pump no less) 100 big, bright balloons. I wanted to make it a day my kids would remember and I know this stunt did the trick.

 We started with around 12 big-bags full of balloons. We had blown the majority of them up while the kids where in P.E. When it got close to recess time, Ronnie started toting them in. At that point, I've never seen my students so in awe of anything. (What is more fun that big bags of balloons, right?) You would have thought I had taken them to Disney World!
 
So, here was the deal. I wanted to hear my students' best counting. We do it everyday, but some of them are bored with it at times and don't show me their abilities. This was my chance!! In order for us to have them all out, everyone had to count as I was pulling each one from the bag. Hallelujah! I've never heard such in sync, careful and beautiful counting IN MY LIFE! Yee-haw! It worked like a charm. I threw them in a pile as we went along and here is what 100 balloons looks like all piled up! Fun! Fun! Fun!

And of course, it was recess time by the time the counting was over and I let them fulfill their tiny little dreams. I think we all have an inner child that would love to run into a big pile of balloons, I sure did! They were allowed to play in the balloons, with the exception of jumping, pushing and screaming. (They followed each exception, except for the screaming part! But God love them, they couldn't help it.) Here is the blur of our balloon bash that completely engulfed our 20 minutes of recess time.

After that, we had a 100 balloon pop and the kids practically fought over who got to clean the most balloons up. 

 Besides the balloon fun, we had many jam-packed activities all day but I didn't have the time or brain-juice to remember to take any pictures! We did the counting by 10's to 100 ice cream scoops, fruit-loop necklaces (school-wide activity), and also colored and counted our little hearts out. Great day, if I must say. <3

Can't resist to share my cute, colorful and sunshiny door! "We're 100 Days Brighter!" I used my projector and traced some super cute clip art I found from Whimsy Clips. Here is the link, also free! Cute Sunshine Clip Art. Thank you Whimsy Clips!!!!! 
 

My design matches the hats I made for the event as well. My kids looked ADORABLE in them!!! (Here is the link to the free download: Free 100th Day Hat: I'm 100 Days Brighter!

I hope your 100th Day was loads of fun too! I think my next one will go much smoother now that I know what to expect! (Expect wild, happy, fun-filled kids and no time to sit down, not even for a minute. :)


God Bless!