Cheap....

I need to buy stock in cheap white paper plates.  I use them ALL. the. time.  Not fancy ones....the cheap ones that stick together and you have to be careful or you use two at once.

I use them to make snowmen.  Here are some of the snowmen we just made!  Aren't they CUTE!!!!

I use them to make seasons spinners.  I think I forgot to blog about them when we made them last fall.  But I still have a couple in the classroom (long story but the kiddos wanted me to hang them up in the room)

I use them for peas and carrots.  Do you do peas and carrots when composing and decomposing numbers?  I've been doing peas and carrots with each number as I introduce it.  I even made a bunch of recording sheets to go along with my lessons.   You'll be able to find them in my brand new store soon.

I used cheap white paper plates for Zero the Hero masks.  My kiddos made these masks today for the 90th day.  I saw the picture of the ones Crystal from Kreative in Kinder made and I just knew we needed to make them too.  You can see her picture here.  They were our special 90th day project.  When we counted, the students raised them high for every 10th number.  I wish I had a video camera. Just made me smile every time those empty eyes were raised toward the sky.

Do you use cheap white paper plates as much as I do?  What do you do with them....either size?

Zero the Hero

Today was our tenth day of school...Hooray!  I have wanted to do Zero the Hero since I discovered him about day 43 last year. 

Zero the Hero is such a fun guy!  My whole Kindergarten team talked it over and decided we would all do him.  I looked at all the wonderful resources out there and just couldn't decide what to do, because I knew I couldn't do it all (there are too many great ideas and products).  I came to school with a general idea...but I was open to change.  I asked a fellow teacher what she was doing and she said, "What!!...it's the tenth day??"  Apparently we all forgot because  no one was really prepared.  We resolved to make day 20 extra good and did just a couple of things. 

Did not realize that taking stickers off a sheet of ten would be good fine motor practice.

  I was able to throw together a couple of really fun activities to go with our learning about 10 page.  We watched Zero the Hero from Schoolhouse Rock, learned about the number 10 using Kathleen Pedersen's (from Growing Kinders) Zero the Hero packet, and then we made this cute Zero the Hero I found on Pinterest.  Aren't they adorable!  I am saving everything and we will make a book for the hundredth day...and even beyond.

Still drawing spider people.

My favorite....I tried to encourage her to add the arms and legs in what I considered the proper places, but she still needed the arms coming out of the head

Oops...I missed that ten.  But doesn't he look happy?