100 Days! (I think??)

Happy 100th Day! Wait…is it really the 100th day? Who really knows…too many cold/snow days to remember when it is, but we got sick of waiting so we decided to celebrate! I decided to buy all of the kiddos white t-shirts this year and their job was to decorate them with 100 of anything! You can see that we have a pretty creative group of 1st graders. From thumbprints, to cotton balls, to paw prints, and beads…these were some well thought out ideas! 

We spent the afternoon discussing what we would do if we had 100 dollars, in which some of my favorite responses were, "I'm going to buy a MANSION!!!" or "I would get a car!"…barbie dream house mansion and Ken's convertible maybe?!? We also talked about if we would rather be stuck in a room with 100 butterflies or 100 ants, have to live with 100 snakes or 100 dinosaurs, and finally what we would do on our 100th birthday. Yes, yes…some of us do dream of pushing our wheel chair into Chuckie Cheese in 94 years..but others of kept it low key and just said they would sleep ;-) They must have great-grandparents as examples!

The other part of our afternoon was spent building structures with 100 toothpicks and 100 marshmallows. The kiddos had a blast with this activity. It challenged them to revise and redo to make things stronger/better which is very hard for first graders to do -- it challenged them to think outside of the box and it allowed my engineers in the classroom to get their time to shine.

The only problem that arose was when some groups came up and said, "Ok we need more toothpicks!! My response? "You only get 100!" Their response? "Awww….C'mon!!!" They struggled to then go back to their groups and use all of the materials. They learned how to work with friends who they don't usually interact with and to listen to all of the group members ideas. I was very impressed with their collaboration and their efforts. It was neat to see them in STEM situations!

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