How many days have you been in school? We have been in school for 92 days. We have been using this Interactive Calendar to count by tens, build the number of the day, and learn about place value using digital coins and cubes. Even though we are counting the days we are in school, we are not celebrating the 100th day of school. Instead, we will go all the way to 120.
The benchmark number for 1st grade is 120 according to CC standards. My first graders are looking forward to the 120th day of school. They feel they are so much more grown up than the Kindergartners because they are counting past 100.
These are 3 of the math and language art related activities I am planning to help us celebrate this very special day.
How much is 120? A counting book
First graders need practice counting, writing numbers and making groups of 10. They also love drawing and coloring. This fun book gets them to do just that (don’t worry Kindergarten teachers, this can be adapted to make a book for the 100th day of school).
Last year was my first year teaching in a dual language classroom. I copied the book so that every other page was either in English or Spanish. My students had so much fun reading the book in both languages. When they finished drawing, I had them look for cognates and circle them.
You can preview the How much is 120th? book in my store.
Who can get $1.20?
For this activity, I pre-teach students about the value of coins (another interactive calendar activity for daily math calendar).
First, I model how to play the game. I roll the die and take the number of pennies shown on the die. Then I roll again and take the number of pennies again. But I model how to trade 5 pennies for a nickel or 10 pennies for a dime. I continue to roll and add pennies until I get to 120 cents.
I separate students into groups of 4. Then I give each group a die, 20 pennies, 10 nickels, and 30 dimes. But I always have some spare coins just in case a group needs more. Some groups may not be ready to count to 120 and may only be ready to trade pennies for dimes. That’s ok. They have fun playing this game and it becomes one of our math centers.
If I had 120…
This day brings a special writing activity. First graders use the visual vocabulary and sentence frame to write about what they would do if they’d have that many toys, dollars, candies, etc.
You can download this FREE activity here.
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