Delran Students are 100 Days Smarter!

On February 12, our youngest learners at Millbridge Elementary School celebrated the 100th Day of School by dressing up like they are 100 years old and participating in a variety of 100-themed activities. In addition to a day of fun for the kids, celebrating the 100th day reinforces essential early numeracy concepts for kindergartners and first graders.

Some of Mrs. Cusack's 1st graders show off gumball machines with 100 gumballs.

Chrissie Cusack, 1st grade teacher and Math Subject Area Leader for Millbridge, shared some of the educational importance behind the 100th day. "The 100th Day of School is a fabulous way for young learners to celebrate all of their hard work and academic accomplishments! However, it is also a great opportunity for students to focus on cardinality, patterns in numbers, and place value through STEAM activities and games. During this great celebration using the significant number 100, students build their numeracy skills and ability to make sense of numbers, patterns and problem solve."

Collecting sets of 100 objects helps students understand the number 100, and what that looks like for different-sized objects. "When the kids bring their bags of 100 objects in, we line them all up and reinforce how 100 starburst LOOKS like a lot more than 100 beans, but that it's still only 100," explained kindergarten teacher Laurel Scattergood.

Songs and dancing help practice different ways to count to 100, like by 5s or 10s.

Students also had a chance to build a tower with 100 cups. The size of their completed 100-cup structures further develops understanding of the magnitude of 100.

Ten frames are rectangular frames for placing counters to illustrate the numbers 0-10. They are useful in helping students build a strong understanding of ten, which is required in order to be able to understand larger numbers. Students can see how numbers are composed and decomposed. For example, 7 can be seen as 5 and two more, or 3 away from 10. Filling in ten frames to mark each day of school helps students recognize patterns and count by tens to 100.

Keeping track of how many days we have been in school so far this year helps build beginning place value understanding. Each day, students add a straw to represent another day in school. When they get to ten straws, they bundle them together to make a ten. Today's straw made the 10th bundle of 10, which could then be bundled together into a hundred! In the photo above, you can see kindergarten teacher Kelsea Arcaini moving the bundle to the hundreds place.

Kindergartner James Foster shows off his 100 day crown, featuring 100 stars.

Kindergarten parent Laura Foster reflected, "The 100th Day celebration provided such a fun, natural way to encourage math learning at home separate from structured math homework. Collecting 100 LEGOs, and planning a special outfit while counting the days until 100 on the calendar made math exciting and something to celebrate."

Join us in congratulating our youngest learners on reaching this exciting milestone in the school year!