Easy DIY Mohawk Hat to Celebrate the 100th Day of School
The 100th day of school sneaks up on you! You get back from winter holidays and all of a sudden your elementary school child will be telling you they need to wear something special to school or bring a collection of 100 items to celebrate the 100th day of the school year with their class.
In anticipation of the 100th day of school many teachers encourage students to come up with creative ideas on ways to display 100. These displays can be elaborate or simple, but they are always so much fun to share. If you peruse Pinterest, you will quickly see some incredibly crafty ideas you can make for your child to wear. I’m always impressed with those parents and grandparents who can whip up something amazing that you can tell took so much time and effort.
On the other hand, if you are looking for something quick and easy, there are some simple projects for the 100th day of school as well – like our 100th day of school hat (directions below). Full disclosure, I made this in the car line on my son’s 100th day of celebration in kindergarten. If you’re a last minute parent like me, and you happen to have a hat, safety pins and pipe cleaners on hand, this could be an easy win for you!
Why do schools have a 100th day celebration?
A 100th day of school celebration is a great way to celebrate the significant milestone of being 100 days smarter in the school year.
The 100th day is a great opportunity for teachers to utilize tools in a fun way. Many teachers incorporate math skills in different ways with lesson plans that include using a hundreds chart, working on counting skills or fine motor skills while counting small items with younger students. The day presents opportunities for creative learning making it a special day for the whole class.
Whether your child is counting fruit loops, using writing prompts to write a creative story for a class book, or attaching small groups of stickers in different colors stickers to a poster board, they will have a great time celebrating the big day.
Simple DIY 100th Day of the School Year Mohawk Hat
A few years ago, my son’s class was instructed to bring something to wear for the celebration, as his entire grade level would be doing a red carpet fashion show and then parading around the school. I’m not exceptionally crafty and didn’t want to spend much on the project so decorating something we already owned seemed like a perfect fit.
We opted to create a 100th day of school hat…more specifically a mohawk hat with 100 spikes!
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Materials
To make our 100th day of school project, I used the following materials:
- 1 – hat (we used one he already owned)
- 51 – pipe cleaners
- 5 – safety pins
Instructions
The first step was having my son pick out 50 pipe cleaners from our package. He practiced his kindergarten counting skills by placing them in five groups of ten. (We didn’t use specific colors, but you could definitely pick team colors or school colors if you want to have a theme for your 100th day of school hat.)
Once he selected his colors, he was instructed to bend each pipe cleaner in half to make a V-shape.
While he was bending the pipe cleaners, I pulled an extra pipe cleaner from the package and measured the length against his hat. I folded in the edges to make sure the pipe cleaner would only be as long as the body of the hat.
Next I took the V-bent pipe cleaners and twisted the base of the V around the long pipe cleaner I had measured, starting at one end and working toward the other. I did this with all 50 pipe cleaners. (If you have an older elementary child, they could make this magic happen on their own!)
When all 50-Vs were attached to the long pipe cleaner I pulled out the safety pins and attached the long pipe cleaner to the hat. The mohawk was secured by putting one safety pin on each end of the long pipe cleaner and one in the middle. It was still a little floppy and I wanted it to stand straight up, so I added a safety pin between the middle and each end.
The mohawk hat was complete!
Of course he wanted to count all the spikes to ensure there was really 100. My kindergartener doubted me since we only used 50 pipe cleaners. His 100th day celebration hat turned out to be a beginning lesson in multiplication and division!
100th Day of School Mohawk Hat Success!
As mentioned above, this was a last minute project for us. While many of the wearable Pinterest ideas would take a long time to create, this 100th day of school hat only took 5-10 minutes and my son, who was 6 at the time, was able to help with the vast majority of the project.
My son was beyond excited to wear his mohawk hat for the 100th day celebration. Upon entering the school that morning he encountered a group of fifth grade boys who were so impressed with his mohawk and told him how cool he looked. (Thanks guys for the extra boost of confidence for my little guy on this special day!)
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