Tuesday, January 28, 2014

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Conceptualizing 100 With Building Blocks

The 100th Day of school is almost upon us, and I am joining with 19 other bloggers to bring you the Celebrate the 100th Day! series, full of resources and ideas to celebrate 100 days of school!

Today I'm sharing an activity that is perfect for helping young children see and feel just how much 100 is.  It can also be adapted to helping younger children conceptualize 10 and older children visualize 1000 and more.  Additionally, it strengthens fine motor skills, exercises analytic reasoning, and adds a multi-sensory aspect to math!  And it can easily be adapted to fit a small home daycare (like mine!), a homeschooling family, or a classroom!  *Also, I am including a history extension that I prepared for my 6-year old!*

So, let's get started!

You will need at least 100 interlocking blocks.  We used mega blocks like those below, but you may need more than one package (affiliate link):

If you are expanding the lesson for older children, you will want 10 pieces of paper also.

Easy How-to:

1.  Let each child build a stack with 10 blocks.

2.  Count by tens to 100.  Place each stack on the same piece of paper as you count.
  Older children:  Throw in a few math problems at this point, like 100-30 or 70-20 or 40-10.

3.  Discuss!  Is 100 a lot or a little?  What can you buy with $100?  Has it taken long to get to 100 days of school?

Did you know...
* a person who is 100 years old is called a centenarian?
* there are 100 yards in an American football field?
* tigers are pregnant for about 100 days?
* wolves can run over 100 miles in one day?
* a "googol" is the number 1 followed by 100 zeros?

4.  Extension:  What if we had 10 papers and each paper had 100 blocks on it?  Line up 10 papers and count, by hundreds, to 1000.  Discuss!  Is 1000 a lot or a little?  What can you buy with $1000?  How many years would 1000 days be?

5.  Timeline Extension:  Let's imagine each block represents a year.  How long ago were you born?  100 years ago was 1914.  The first airplane flew out of sight of land from Scotland to Norway and WWI began.  Most people did not own cars and no one had ever heard of a cell phone!  Move to the next paper representing 100 years.  200 years ago was 1714.  Beethoven was alive and writing music, Napoleon was defeated, and the war of 1812 ended.  1000 years ago was 1014.  The United States of America did not even exist!  Highlight dates you and your children find interesting along the timeline!


This series is organized by the amazing Becky at This Reading Mama--be sure to click on over there to see all 20 posts full of ideas, freebies, and teaching techniques for the 100th day!!

Be sure to check out all the participating bloggers below and the collaborative 100th Day of School Pinterest board! 

I may share at any of these parties!


nodoubtlearning said...

We love building and blocks! What a great questioning strategy to get kids thinking about grouping in the 100's as an extension. Thanks so much for participating in our 100's day hop!