The 100th Day of School

I don't know if all schools do this, but where we live, the 100th day of school is a big celebration. Mostly for the younger grades. I'm not sure that they have a clue why there is a celebration, but they love it. Frankly, I'm not sure either except that, as a teacher, it is a great opportunity to teach about how much 100 is; all the different ways to show 100, how to count to 100 in different ways, what you can buy with $100, etc. They have lots of fun things planned for today: They will make trail mix (10 things...they get 1o of each item...voila! 100 things to eat!). They each had to make a collection of 100 of something in order to display to the class. And, the piece de resistance....they had to dress like they are 100 years old. Of course, my darling daughter wanted to be an old MAN, not an old woman. A trip to a resale shop, a friend finding the vest and a little silver hair spray is all it took to transform her. (My friend, who has a son in Kindergarten, called them Benjamin Button.)

Here she is with her collection of 100 things. We chose buttons. 5 sets of 20. I thought it was a really great idea until the buttons started popping off this morning. Doesn't matter though...Avery told me last night, as we completed this project, "Mom, this is the best idea you ever had. You have great ideas." (That took a bit of the sting out of Reese's telling me how much I suck 20 times a day. At least one of them still thinks I'm alright sometimes.)

Anyway, the bad thing about today? Breaking it to Avery that today is NOT the last day of school. Turns out, this whole time she has thought that the 100th day of school was the LAST day of school. So when I told her it wasn't...that she'll go more like 165 days, she said "Well then, why are we celebrating today? We should celebrate then." I tried to explain and then just gave up and said "You'll have a celebration then, too. That's what Kindergarten is all about. Celebrations." "Another celebration on the last day?" she asks. "Yep. And on Valentine's Day next week, too." "Kindergarten rocks!" She yells.

I couldn't agree more.