Excitement has been building these last few days leading up to the 100th day of school! One morning meeting found the second graders in particular plying me for information about how we were going to celebrate. "Do you have anything in your head?," they asked.
"Why yes, in fact I do. A brain, eyes, ears...etc. etc." Make them work for the answers is my philosophy.
"No, no, any ideas in your head."
"Oh, I'm supposed to have ideas in my head?" and I strung them along a little further until finally, I asked them if they had any ideas in their heads. A few came up but the one that caught everyone's attention was a Dinosaur Day. We've been learning about dinosaurs in Science and they wanted to dress up which seemed pretty appropriate since we were celebrating 100 and all things very "old" and so that's how we came to be dressed like dinosaurs and playing with the number 100.
Everybody knows that if you don't want to become extinct you must DINOSIZE!
We had a DINO DOLLAR DIG and tried to pick out exactly 100 pennies.
We had a DINO DASH and tried to be the first to make it to 100.
We made DINO ZEROS - a googol, a number with 100 zeros.
We measured the DINO DISTANCE of 100 cubes and compared it to some dinos we know.
We played DINO Heads or Tails.
We made our own DINO DICTIONARY using the letters of some famous dinosaurs.
We discussed the DIFFICULTIES that having a DINO as a pet might create.
We played DINO DOT to DOT and
some of us even did a DINO DANCE.
When it was all said and done we had even DEVOURED our own DINO cake.
They are a vicious bunch! Sure hope I survive the next 70 to 80 days.
Thursday was the 100th day of school and for those of you that are long past elementary school, it's become a day to celebrate the number 100. A couple of years ago, I read that someone blew up 100 balloons and let the kids pop them. Now that sounded like fun to me! Unfortunately, that year I didn't have access to cheap balloons because I was in Niger and the year following that I would have been crazy to even consider it with the group of children I had. But this year, well my kids are great and if anyone deserves the fun of popping 100 balloons, they do. So last Tuesday, I blew up 100 balloons....yes, I had enough hot air in me to fill them all up! ;) I carried them all to school in a duvet cover - surprisely, they didn't take up that much space. Well, I never really considered what 100 balloons popping would sound like within the walls of my classroom until I let the kids jump in there and get started. Yikes! It literally sounded like gunfire. I could just imagine someone outside the walls preparing for dismissal hearing it and running up to the front with the news that there was gunfire in my classroom. It made the goody-two-shoes in me REALLY nervous. :) The kids loved it and it was fun to see them having fun but I can honestly say that I was extremely happy when the last balloon was popped! So FYI, if you ever decide to do something like this be prepared and maybe in today's world you should let the front office know what you are doing!
