Planning a 100th day of school in French — First Grade Frenchies (2024)

True story: I never understood the point of celebrating 100 days of school. Now before you go start calling me the Grinch, it was my first-year-teacher ignorance that came to that conclusion. I was just starting out with a brand new curriculum, teaching first grade for the first time. I was constantly feeling overwhelmed and felt like I had to squeeze the curriculum in at all times in order to get everything done.

Sound familiar? I couldn’t get behind the idea of wasting an entire day. Some teachers at my school did activities for the entire week leading up to the 100th day! I couldn’t believe it. The grade 1 English team asked if my teaching partner and I (both of us Grade 1 French Immersion) wanted to join in on their 100th-day activities. We reluctantly said yes, being new to the school and not wanting to burn any bridges.

The day was madness. Our classes rotated throughout the day, spending a period with each of the Grade 1 teachers. We had about 6 Grade 1 teachers in total! With each rotation, I grew more and more tired. My classroom got messier and messier. However, I noticed the kids growing more and more excited!

When I took a step back, and put aside my stress of not doing any curriculum work, I realized that there was in fact some magic to the 100th day of school. Watching the first graders parade around the hallway wearing their 100th day of school crowns was precious. When my homeroom class finally returned back to me, they couldn’t hold back their excitement in telling me all the fun activities they did throughout the day in all the different rotations! I quickly realized that there is a lot of beauty in celebrating 100 days of school.

Why should we celebrate 100 days of school?

For starters, I learned rather quickly in my first year of teaching that it’s a ton of fun! Hectic? For sure. Memorable? Absolutely! My students talked about the 100th day of school for weeks and they couldn’t wait to do it all again the next year.

Let’s face it. Teachers and the education system, in general, have taken a massive hit due to the pandemic. We all feel overworked and undervalued. Students have lost the opportunities that were once presented to them and a lot of the magic has been taken away. For example, some new rules in schools include no mixing of cohorts, no field trips, no assemblies, no parties with food, and the list goes on!

Being a teacher has never felt so different and exhausting. So why not bring a little extra cheer and enthusiasm! We really really could use it these days!

Hear me out: I am a PLANNER through and through. I have my lesson plans ready to go at least a week in advance (usually), with minor changes here and there that are inevitable. With all the new protocols, it feels hard to fit in the bare minimum of the curriculum content we are supposed to be doing. With winter break out of the way, we want to dive back into the curriculum. Valentine’s day is usually close to the 100th day as well, so that’s ANOTHER distraction to the plans.

It has taken me a couple of years to slowly shift my thinking. These special days and celebrations at school are not a waste of time and CAN still be great learning opportunities for students. We CAN still fit in curriculum content and fun during these days! They ARE worth the extra preparation and planning! I know it may sound obvious, depending on your teaching style, but I know there are other teachers out there like me, that felt the pressure to stay on top of everything.

Lastly, I want to give you the permission to NOT have to go all out. You don’t need to do a complete room transformation or make sure the day is filled with Pinterest-worthy activities! As long as your students are engaged, having fun and of course doing a bit of learning, you did a great job!

We need these little joys throughout the year to celebrate fun days like the 100th day of school because teaching is hard. Students are tired and so are we. Why not take the day to celebrate how far we’ve come as a classroom community and to reflect on all we have learned in just 100 days of school. It teaches our students to celebrate the little wins and feel proud!

So let’s get into some fun activities you can plan for your 100 days of school in French!

10 Ways to Celebrate the 100th Day of School in French

There are so many fun ways to celebrate the 100th day of school in French however, I will touch on my top 10 in this blog post.

For full transparency, a lot of the images used will be from my French 100th-day packet resource, as I have included most of these activities in it. However, you are free to take the ideas from this blog post and make them your own. You definitely don’t need the packet in order to do most of these activities on your own! If you want everything planned and already done for you, then the packet is ideal.

1. 100th Day of School Books

What better way to kick off the 100th day of school in your classroom than by reading a story! You could even read a book the day before (on the 99th day of school) to build excitement for the next day. These books will help solidify students understanding that 100 days of school is a big deal and a cause for celebration!

Unfortunately, all these books are in English and have been impossible for me to find in French, so depending on your school, they may not be appropriate. My board does 50% of the day in English and 50% of the day in French for first grade, so I am able to squeeze in an English read-aloud here and there.

You can always choose to translate the book yourself if you still want to read these stories, or do a picture walk where students can describe what is happening on each page in French! If you know of any French 100th-day books, feel free to let me know so that I can update this list!

• The Night Before the 100th Day of School (by Natasha Wing)

• 100th Day worries (by Margery Cuyler)

• I'll Teach My Dog 100 Words (by Michael Frith)

• Rocket's 100th Day of School (by Tad Hills)

• 100 Things to Do Before You Grow Up (By National Geographic Kids)

2. Watch Videos and Have a Digital Party

Thanks to the pandemic and virtual teaching, I have officially fallen in love with hosting theme-day parties in my classroom. The reason I like the digital aspect is that it requires me to have to prep fewer materials, create less mess and easily transition from one activity to the next.

For core french teachers or those who move classrooms, this is a game-changer. Last year, I had to switch classrooms every afternoon, and these digital parties allowed me to simply shut off the screen and roll my cart into the next classroom!

If you’re looking for an easy way to implement some 100th day of school fun in French, then you’ll want to consider making a bunch of interactive slides to display and use throughout the day.

Include some different activities in your slides to keep your class engaged. This can include sing-a-long videos, dance-a-long videos, counting to 100 songs and activities, guessing games and more.

If you want all the slides already made and ready for you to use, you can purchase this French digital 100th-day party for google slides. It’s a huge time saver since all the clickable elements and videos are already included, just share your screen (virtual teachers) or display it on a smartboard/projector (in-person teachers) and you’re good to go!

This is very helpful for those who are unfortunately teaching asynchronously currently, as those who are learning from home can click through the slides and be a part of the fun.

3. Make 100th-day crowns

This is probably one of the most popular activities for primary students to do on the 100th day of school. I see photos of students in crowns every year, and for good reason!

Students really enjoy anything that they can wear and make them feel extra special. The beauty of the paper crown is that it’s pretty much free and so easy to do.

You could have students design their own crowns or colour in and assemble some pre-made templates. There are a TON of free 100th day crowns available on Teachers Pay Teachers. La Classe de Madame Angel has a free French template you can find that looks super cute!

If you want to go a bit fancier and it’s within your budget, you can purchase 100th day of school crowns from Amazon or Scholastics. I’ve seen French ones in the past, but do a quick search to see what’s available this year.

4. 100 chart number sense activities

Here is where you can fit in some actual curriculum content throughout the day and not feel too guilty! The 100th day of school is the perfect opportunity to implement some number sense practice with 100 charts.

Students can practice counting to 100 in French, filling in missing numbers on a 100s chart, skip counting to 100, using a number line, and more! There are just so many fun math activities you can do with the number 100.

You could even have students compose and decompose the number 100 or measure items using 100 manipulatives. The options are endless.

A very popular math idea to do on the 100th day of school is to do some graphing. Most teachers will graph how many days of school we are at, during their morning calendar routine (which is genius!). You could have students fill in their own graph during that time as well. If you haven’t implemented this idea, you can always save it to start next year with your class.

5. 100 years old activities and writing prompts

It’s always fun to have students imagine what they would look like when they are 100 years old! They find it soo funny and it’s usually a good laugh. You could have your students make self-portraits of what they would look like in 100 years or answer the writing prompt in their journals.

Similarly, you could have students predict what the world would look like in 100 years. This is a great moment to tie in your day with some social studies, having students make connections to the world and their community at large. Perhaps they can brainstorm their city and write in their journal about what they’d like to see in their city in 100 years.

If you’re looking for some simple writing prompts to use for the 100th day of school, I’ve got a FREEBIE for you! These writing prompts are taken from my larger French 100th day of school resource packet. If you aren’t ready to purchase the resource yet, but still want some materials to use, you can grab these simple French 100th-day writing sheets for your class. CLICK HERE to download for free!

6. $100 budgeting activities

Another great way to incorporate math into your 100th day of school plans is to do some budgeting and financial literacy activities. You can have students brainstorm things they would buy with $100 dollars.

For more of a project-based task, you can create a menu of different items at different price points. Either you can do this by printing & taping different items to a chart paper or on your front board. Put some varying prices beside each item and then tell students to plan out what they would buy with only $100 and why.

You could even pick random objects from around the classroom and tape price tickets on those items for a more realistic approach. If your students are a little more advanced (perhaps grade 3 and up) you can have them create the items to be on the menu!

This is something they could do the week leading up to the 100th day of school. During art periods, you can have each student draw and design an item of their choice and colour it in nicely before cutting it out. By the end, you’ll have 20-30 (depending on how many students you have in your class) items that were student-created that are on the menu.

Talk about involving your students in their own learning! I love how authentic and hands-on this activity could be. Finally, print out some fake $100 bills to give to each student to make the process seem even more real. They will then make a plan and budget how they will spend their $100 dollars.

As an extension, you could have them write a simple story of what they will do with the items they have purchased with their one hundred dollars.

For a simple budgeting activity, I have included a $100 spending challenge in my French 100th-day packet resource. Students are to plan out the ideal 100th day of school party by purchasing the food, activities and accessories of their choice with their one hundred dollars.

They need to pick items from each category, write the total and then add it all up. This incorporates addition skills as well as problem-solving, as they cannot spend more than one hundred dollars.

7. 100 Items Collection Project

This is another very popular activity to do for the 100th day of school. I really enjoy this idea because it allows for families to collaborate at home and get everyone involved.

Students are tasked with bringing in 100 items of their choice. Some teachers allow them to bring them for a show & tell presentation. As an added challenge, I prefer to have the students make sure that their 100 items can be concealed in a bag, box, tin, jar, etc.

Because the items are hidden, it gives a lot more opportunities for some oral questions to get the class guessing and predicting what the mystery items could be!

The project is very open-ended however, I would suggest going over some appropriate examples of items that could be brought in so that you don’t have to deal with any miscommunication on the day of. You also should mention that they cannot bring items that are easily breakable, to avoid tears and drama on your special day.

Some appropriate examples of items for students to bring to school :

• 100 marbles

• 100 stickers

• 100 building blocks

• 100 playing cards

• 100 bracelets

• 100 seashells

• 100 pompoms

• 100 smarties

• Etc!

Afterwards, you could have your students go on a gallery walk to take a look at all the different collections of items. If the items are all appropriate, I let my students use them during playtime as well. It’s always fun to have some new items for students to play with, as the classroom toys can get old real quick haha.

8. 100th day STEM building

That first year, when we did rotations for the 100th day of school, one of the first-grade homeroom teachers did a STEM challenge in her room. She had different items like stackable cups, index cards and legos. She included a variety of instructions at each station. Some examples of STEM challenges are:

• Build a tower using 100 pieces (e.g., building blocks, Legos, link cubes, etc)

• Stack as many cups in 100 seconds

• Write your name as many times as you can in 100 seconds o index cards and stack them or make a structure

There are many challenges you can have your students do with the number 100. I particularly like the 100-second challenges because they’re quick and high-intensity, causing a lot of shrieking and laughter!

You may want to check out “minute to win it” challenges on Pinterest! There are so many cool ideas and instead of a minute, you can just modify the challenges for 100 seconds.

9. 100th Day of School Snack

Arguably a favourite among the students, why not have a little 100th day of school snack! It’s relatively cheap to put together, exciting for the students and incorporates number sense.

The idea is to have students prepare a quick snack that involves 100 pieces. They will be able to practice counting, skip counting, grouping, etc with their snacks before indulging.

You want the pieces to be small, as 100 of anything can be too much! I’d suggest asking parents & guardians to help out by donating some boxes of snacks. Give them ideas and suggestions of what type of snacks they can bring in.

You want enough to be able to give each student 10 pieces from each category. This means you’ll want to choose 10 different elements to incorporate into the 100th-day snack. I recommend prepping a little beforehand to keep things running smoothly. Have each snack category in its own container or plate and only allow students in small groups to go up at a time to assemble their snack.

With COVID protocols, you may need to adapt this activity by doing all the assembling yourself, having students sanitize first and/or having students wear gloves.

Some suggestions for snacks :

• Goldfish

• Pretzels

• Cheerios (and similar cereals)

• Chocolate Chips

• Dried Raisins (or similar fruit)

• Gummy candy

• Smarties

• Popcorn

• Mini marshmallows

• Chips

• Chocolate covered berries

You can find these French 100th day of school snack recipe cards and sorting mats in my resource.

10. 100th Day of School Certificates

Lastly, as a fun reward for completing 100 days at school, you can host a mini awards ceremony! This can be as simple or as elaborate as you want, depending on how extra you are as a teacher haha. I fall somewhere in the middle of that.

You could send students home with an adorable certificate stating that they are “100 jours plus intelligent” or simply that they have completed 100 days at school.

Pro-tip: Print these certificates out on card-stock paper and laminate them before handing them out. Yes, it requires a little extra effort but they will feel so much fancier and therefore special to the students. They’ll be proud to show their families the certificates and display them in their homes!

I’ve got some FREE 100th Day of School French certificates that you can download and print out. Click here to grab them!

There you have it! I feel like with all these 10 ideas, you’ve got way more than enough activities to run a fun French 100th day of school party! I really hope these tips were helpful and that you have a successful day.

If you end up using any of these ideas, I’d love to see what your class got up to! Feel free to email me or tag me on Instagram ( @firstgradefrenchies ) so I can reshare your ideas! Have an amazing week and congrats on surviving another 100 days of teaching!