Monday, January 9, 2023

Celebrating Day 100

One of my favorite days to celebrate in our homeschool is nearly upon us--the 100th day of school. You might recognize some of the ideas listed below because they were posted here, hidden halfway down our list of Fun February Days. Others were used more recently.

Ways to Celebrate Day 100:

  • Make a 100-link paper chain. (We kept the chain up for the rest of the year, adding five links every Friday. In the end, we had a 180-link chain. Very impressive.)
  • Sit by the window and count 100 vehicles. In your creative journal, draw the 100th car that goes by. (One benefit of living along a busy road is that this took less than 10 minutes.)
  • Write a 100-word story in your creative journal using as many words as possible that equal 100--century, dollar, centimeter, Ben Franklin ($100 bill).
  • Choose an encyclopedia and write the entry words on page 100.
  • Have our Traditional Day 100 Lunch of soft pretzels

  • Build something using 100 LEGOs
  • Put together 100-piece puzzles
  • Draw a picture using 100 as the base

  • Learn about America 100 years ago. Who was President? What did a new car cost? What was the price of gasoline? Record your answers in your creative journal.
  • Run a 100-yard dash. (We did ours in snow and winter gear and broke no world record.)
  • Estimate how long 100 inches is, then measure to see how accurately you estimated
  • Write a special candy bar letter to your students. 


Finally, here is a link to 50 Ideas to Celebrate the 100th Day of School which is where I gleaned some of the ideas I used. One idea I love but haven't used is to visit a 100-year-old person and have them share memories of their childhood. 

What have you done to celebrate Day 100? Leave your ideas in the comments--especially if you don't mind me borrowing them. 

Tuesday, January 3, 2023

Celebrating Half Day

As a homeschooling mom, I try to keep my children from being eaten alive by monotonous school days. I certainly don't always succeed; many of our days look startlingly alike. But one way I fight boredom is by celebrating milestones. Tomorrow is Day 90 for us, or Half Day since we log 180 days per school year. In my opinion, the easiest way to honor Half Day is at lunch. Cut everything in half, serve half cups of juice, or have a half dozen grapes per person. My children are unaware that Half Day is upon us, so I'll surprise them tomorrow with Half Day Lunch, serving it on paper plates that have been cut in half, of course.

If you want more ideas on how to celebrate this milestone, here are, well, half of the ideas. The other half are the ones you come up with yourself. Just don't cut things in half like recess or rewards. 

  1. Take a half mile walk
  2. Use a half an hour segment of your day to play an educational game. Consider playing Memory, since you need to find the other half of each pair. 
  3. Do half a dozen exercises
  4. Skip half of the review questions in Arithmetic. (Provided they understand the concept and don't need the practice.)
  5. Draw half of an object in your creative journal or cut an item in half and tape it in your creative journal. My twist on this will be to have my children glue or tape the other half of the object in their sibling's journal. 
  6. Write half of a short story (like, two paragraphs long) and give it to someone else to write the second half. 
I updated this post to show you the lunch 
I made for my children.