Remember in elementary school when every single holiday was a huge celebration? There were tons of random parties for odd occasions, and they made each day more exciting. 

Somewhere between then and now we stopped having fun like this at school, but it’s not too late to bring back some of our old childhood traditions!

One of the best parts of the year that is now forgotten is the 100th day of school. It was always so exciting to have realized we made it to 100 full days! 

In elementary school we would bring 100 of something or dress up as 100 years old on the day. There would be a little chunk carved into the day just to show off the 100 things you brought, or the wig you found in your basement to look like a grandma. 

Now we don’t even acknowledge the day, but if we did school would be so much more fun! Can you imagine everyone dressed up like old people? It would be so funny and a great way to make the day a little more interesting.

In line with this, what happened to fun Fridays? Back when we were younger, I feel like every other Friday was a fun Friday. 

We would play games, watch movies, and talk with friends in the afternoon after a morning of work. It was always the highlight of my week, and  it has potential to be just as fun if we had this at JR. It would be like a mini pep rally every so often, but instead of waiting every month or two to go sit on crowded bleachers, every few weeks we would get the chance to socialize for a few hours, which would make school feel more like a community and give many of us something to look forward to.

The cozy atmosphere the day before winter break is yet another thing lost throughout the years. 

The last day of school before the holidays used to be so fun; you could wear PJs to school, sometimes bring a stuffed animal, and the whole class would watch a fun movie and eat snacks. Where did that go? Now, I feel like more than half the class could be missing and we’d still have a test. Absolutely ridiculous. Many kids just want to relax the day before break, and it doesn’t seem like  it would be that hard to execute. We don’t even have to put movies in the mix, but at least make it a pajama day and hold off on the tests until after break. Maybe let us talk to our friends, that would be great.

Now, I will admit that Jackson-Reed does well with Valentine’s Day. We usually have La-La Love Grams, where members of the choir serenade a specific teacher or student with a song.  This is always entertaining to watch. However, I feel like we could do better. 

There used to be little exchanges of things that you would buy for the whole class, and while we don’t have to do all that, we could bring little parts of it back. We could do the rock-paper-scissors challenge but make it Valentines themed, or add a flower-throwing aspect to the love grams just to keep people on their toes.

High school is stressful, but bringing some of these celebratory  traditions that we used to do as kids could make it so much more fun. 

We don’t have to do anything big, but at least acknowledging the days that used to be all about creativity and friends would make it less about work and more about building a community. •