100th Day of School

We marked a milestone this week. We hit the 100th day of school. I've seen other home school moms who have had their kids do 100 math problems, or write 100-word essays, or do 100 of something else that doesn't sound like a very fun way to "celebrate" the day. So I tried to think of something different.

For writing, I had Emma write about what she would do with $100. I suggested writing a story, but she elected to turn it into a poem, with abstract artwork to decorate the pages.

Next came math. I remembered this challenge from when I was in school, and I had thought it was a lot of fun back then. We assigned a number to each letter of the alphabet, A=1, B=2, etc. Then her challenge was to find words that add up to 100. As motivation (this can get tedious quickly for some kids) I offered to give her 100 pennies for each 100 point word she found. I originally gave her 24 hours to complete the challenge, but the next day she asked for more time, so I allowed her to continue working on it over the weekend.

It might not seem to exciting some some people, but she liked the change of activities and the challenges of the day. Maybe next year we'll focus more on history and innovation, looking at what the world was like 100 years ago, and imagining what it might be like 100 years from now!