Today was the 100th Day of School, and we all celebrated being 100 days smarter!

Imagine my surprise when my post-it note memory from March 4, 2015 read: 100TH DAY OF SCHOOL!!! Quelle coïncidence!

That day was a lot of fun. The entire school of about 120 students was split into multi-grade groups of around 10 that all participated in a series of fun 100th Day Activities: build a tower with 100 kapla blocks, make a necklace with 100 beads, add your self portrait to the 100 smiles poster, sort and count 100 objects….

I was assigned to the Name 100 English Words station. All of my students had about 10 minutes to remember as many English words as they could, with the help of a few categories we had prepared to prompt them (colors, days of the week, school supplies, foods, etc). These are kids in a 50% English immersion setting, so they really were able to name 100 words, and in some cases even more!!

Working the station with my friend Estelle, a student teacher at the school, we took it in turns to record the words the kids shouted out, scribbling as fast as we could. During a break between stations, the principal sat with us and glanced over the pages of our messy handwriting and tried to guess who had written which pages. It wasn’t very difficult…

In France, they start learning cursive right away in first grade, so all French people have impeccable (and weirdly identical) penmanship. My principal was shocked to learn that in the States, cursive is rarely taught anymore, and if it is it’s well after students have learned print (confusingly called script in French). Although Estelle’s normally perfect handwriting was a bit ragged from the speed with which she’d been writing, it made my words look like hieroglyphics.

Today in school, I saw kids wearing 100 Day hats made with 100 polka dots. I found stickers all over the school that said “I walked 100 steps from room 212 and I landed here!” I noticed boards with math problems posted around the school, each with a solution of 100.

And today, I’m contributing to the 100th Day celebrations by publishing my 100th blog post. I have gotten so much joy from sharing and connecting with people through my 100 posts, and I can only imagine what ground I’ll cover with the next 100! Here’s to being 100 days smarter and 100 posts richer! ❂

Slice of Life is a daily writing challenge during the month of March hosted by Two Writing Teachers. Visit their blog for more information about the challenge and for advice and ideas about how to participate.

*photo in the header c/o Erin Russo