One Hundred
Background Information & Activities

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The one hundredth day of school is a great opportunity for children to explore the number 100 and practice different math concepts. You can use a hundred chart to review skip-counting, counting on, and counting back from100. You can also use 100 objects to practice making equal groups and develop an understanding of multiplication and division in our base-10 number system. Help your children understand that 100 is a special number. One hundred cents are equal to one dollar. Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius, a century is a period of 100 years, and the United States senate has 100 elected members, two senators from each of the fifty states. What other places can you find the number 100? Challenge your children to find out themselves.

A hundred chart is a great way to build number sense and help children understand how numbers are related to each other. Use a hundred chart to skip-count by twos out loud. Prompt them to find a pattern in the chart. Help them understand that when they skip-count by twos, they name all the even numbers. You may want to review the Even and Odd movie. Then use the hundred chart to skip-count by fives and tens. What patterns do they see? When you skip-count by fives, you name all the numbers that end in 0 or 5. Help them see that the numbers fall in two columns on the chart. When you skip-count by tens, you name all the numbers that end in a 0 and all the numbers fall in the last column of the chart. Challenge your children to skip-count in other ways and find different patterns on the chart to help them remember the skip-counting patterns.

If possible, collect a group of 100 objects, such as marbles, buttons, shells, or rocks. Have your children use the objects to divide them into equal groups. You may want to review the Making Equal Groups movie. Help your children understand that if you divide 100 objects into 2 equal groups, then each group will have 50 objects. Challenge your children to use the objects to make 5 or 10 equal groups. How many objects will be in each group? This will help your children develop number sense.

Remind your children that 100 cents are equal to 1 dollar. If possible, have your children collect and count one hundred pennies. Write $1.00 on the board and show a dollar bill. You may want to review the Dollars and Cents movie. Remind your children that 4 quarters are equal to $1.00. Children can exchange 25 pennies for a quarter to help them visualize the concept. Have your children exchange pennies for different coins and explore making a dollar in different ways.

The number 100 is special for many different reasons. Brainstorm different places where you and your children have seen the number. Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius, a century is a period of 100 years, as in 1900-2000, and the United States senate has 100 members. Where else have they seen or used the number 100? Encourage your children to observe how they use numbers to develop number sense and awareness.

One Hundred Teacher Activities – Click Here!

One Hundred Family Activities – Click Here!

One Hundred Teacher Activities

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Hundred Field Day

If possible, hold a field day on your hundredth day of school. Plan different exercises and physical activities that students can do individually, with partners, or small groups. Instruct your class to do one hundred activities in all. Students may want to do ten sit-ups, ten shuttle runs, ten jumping jacks, ten hops, and so on until they reach one hundred activities. Have students keep track of what they did and have partners or small groups help each other count.

Hundred Hat Day

Have students bring in an old hat or make one out of paper. Then have students glue one hundred items to their hats. They can use paper clips, dried pasta, buttons, beads, stickers, etc. To make counting easier, have them separate the items into equal groups on their hats. For example, they might want to make ten groups of ten items or twenty groups of five items. Have students wear their hats and walk around the room to model their work. You may wish to have a partner double-check the number of items.

Hundred Paper Clips

Have pairs or small groups clip 100 paper clips together. Then have students measure things in the room that are as long, shorter than, and longer than the paper clip chain. Have students record what they find and draw pictures of their items. Then connect all the chains together to practice counting on by hundreds.

Fill in the Blanks

Hand out blank hundred charts to your students. Using one color, have them fill in only the numbers that end in 0 or the “counting by tens” numbers. Then challenge them to fill in the numbers that end in 5 in a different color. Using a third color, ask them to begin filling in the even numbers on the chart, starting at 2. Finally, ask them to fill in the missing numbers with black. What patterns do they notice? How can the patterns help them to add, multiply or skip-count?

One Hundred Family Activities

© 1999-2010 BrainPOP. All rights reserved.

Hundred Pennies

Have your child collect one hundred pennies. He or she can do chores around the house to earn pennies or earn them for good behavior. Every few days, count the pennies together. Practice counting by twos, fives, and tens. Then after your child collects one hundred pennies, have him or her divide the coins into equal groups. How many coins would be in five equal groups? How many would be in two equal groups? Encourage your child to save pennies to buy something in the future.

Rolling to One Hundred

Together with your child, create a hundred chart. Your child can number squares in graph paper or create his or her own on a plain piece of paper. Just be sure that there are ten rows and ten columns. Have your child number the squares. Then use a number cube or die to roll a number. Have your child color that number on the chart. Then roll again and have your child add on to the previous number. For example, if your child rolls a 5, he or she can color the number 5 on the chart. Then if he or she rolls a 3, he or she can count on 3 squares to color 8. Continue coloring until you reach 100.

You can turn this activity into a game if you use game pieces instead of coloring the numbers. Each player can roll the die and move their piece forward to see who gets to 100 first.