Happy 50th Day of School!

When you teach kindergarten that alternate days your students never attend school for 100 days.  The 100th day of school has become a great way to visualize and make the number 100 concrete.  However, I felt if my students didn't really experience the number 100 it didn't seem the best use of our time.  Then last year, I thought about the number 50 which is a fairly large number for five and six year old children and thought I could adjust things I did with 100 to 50.  I'm on year two of the 50th day and we love it.  I thought I would share the things we do in case any of my readers might also never experience the 100th day of school.  

My students bring in a collection of 50 things.  We will orally share what we have brought.  We will listen intently.  We will take a photograph of each student with their collection.  We will share our collections via VoiceThread.

We will practice counting one to one and visualize five groups of ten as we create Fruit Loop 50 necklaces.  This is a great way to visually see groups of ten with each ten being a different color.  Each year I am amazed how intentional and focused my students are with counting while making their necklaces.

Dot to Dots are one way students can read and order numbers.  I put out a variety of number sheets up to 50.  I forgot how much fun it is to create a Dot to Dot and see the shape one creates.

We will create a class book, I wish I had 50........

We will play the Number Grid Game from Everyday Math with a modified grid to 50.

We sing, read, and illustrate Happy 50 Days to Us, to the tune of Happy Birthday.

I do hope to find a 50 piece puzzle for next year.  I hope to think far enough ahead to have a parent volunteer bake cut out cookies in the number five and zero.  If you know any books with 50 in the title I would love to know.  Right now we look at 50 Below Zero by Robert Munsch and I'm not finding much luck with any other 50 related books.