ZELIENOPLE — At his desk, kindergartner Cameron Cleaver picked out 10 cereal pieces of his favorite color.

The class broke out in the Orange Song.

"O-R-A-N-G-E, orange is what that spells," the students, parent helpers and teacher Maria Kletzli sang on Thursday.

Cameron, 6, of Zelienople strung the cereal onto a long plastic string to make a necklace celebrating the 100th day of school at St. Gregory School.

The school just finished a $4.5 million building project, and the class has more room to spread out for activities such as these. The 32 students also have new desks.

On his desk, Cameron taped two pictures of his family in front of the Christmas tree. Cameron's father visited over the holiday and is back in Iraq.

Cameron said he's glad he's got his first 100 days of formal education done, but was focused on finding the pasta noodle marked "20" before he started putting 10 yellow cereal pieces on the necklace.

This year, the 100th school day occurred during Catholic Schools Week, a nationwide event to recognize Catholic education. Catholic schools throughout the Pittsburgh diocese planned special activities for this week.

"We want to celebrate that here is different because we learn about faith," Kletzli said.

Thursday was a big day in Kletzli's room. The students walked 100 stairs, compared the volume of 100 edible and non-edible items and made a 100-day crown.

Down the hall, in the gymnasium where the hardwood floor is still new enough to be shiny, third grade students staged a math facts game show.

Teacher Julia Lattner held up a sheet of paper marked with the problem: 16 divided by 4.

Throwing up his pink sign fashioned like an auction marker, Tyler Hutanick beat out the other students sitting on the stage.

After he was called on, he hesitated. "Four?" Tyler, 9, asked.

He was right, but his team lost the game by a score of 8-5.

Tyler of Zelienople likes math class, especially division, he said.

Downstairs, sixth graders might have been counting, but it was in Spanish.

In Lindsay Ponsonby's Spanish class, the room smelled like salsa from the class' 100th day fiesta.

Students supplied items such as tortilla chips and Mexican cookies, combining a celebration for Catholic Schools Week and the 100th day. The Super Bowl on Sunday with the Pittsburgh Steelers against the Seattle Seahawks added to the spirit, Ponsonby said.

Sixth grader Bailey Bennett of Harmony said she's appreciated spending the first 100 days of this school year at a Catholic school because she is able to participate in activities like the fiesta.

Laura Bieli, also a sixth grade student, of Cranberry Township said she was glad to spend the 100th day in the new building. She's looking forward to having the spring play in the school's own gymnasium.

The school never had a gym before, said Mary Ann Nock, St. Gregory principal. The school built three buildings and added 28,000 square feet of space.

The additional space means classes don't have to meet in the cafeteria and the office staff doesn't have to work in the rectory, Nock said.

The office staff and the younger grades moved to the new building in November and the older students moved over Christmas break.

"We're still finishing up little things," she said.

One of the last things to finish is a weather station in the science classroom. The station measures daily temperatures, tracks precipitation and keeps other atmospheric data.

Once the science room is wired for the Internet, the students will be able to see the data on graphs, Nock said.

Kletzli said her kindergarten students are excited to be in the new building.

"They would rather be in the gym than outside now that we are in the new building," she said.