He reached around the corner, snapped off the lights and jumped into the classroom wearing a mask and a cape, announcing he was Zero the Hero. But, it seems more than a few students in Jennifer Streun’s class at Whittier Elementary School recognized their dark-haired principal underneath the white mask of Zero.
“On the 10th day of school, I introduce the number zero in our number line, and I teach them a song about Zero the Hero that I learned years ago from another teacher. I hear Zero the Hero is in the old SchoolHouse Rock jingles,” said Streun. “We sing the song and put a smiley face in our zeros and talk about zero in place value every time we use zero. Then, just before the 100
th day of school, they usually notice that zero will be on the number line twice and I suggest we may have a special visit from Zero the Hero on the 100
th day of school.”
Streun got the idea to make a cape and asked her principal at the time to dress the part of Zero. This started five years ago at Blix Elementary School with John Blix as Zero the Hero. Blix played the masked invader for two years. When Misty Hutson became the Blix principal, she took over the cape. Now for two years, Eric Konishi donned a mask and capered about for the kids as Zero.
Konishi told Streun’s students that he had heard they knew how to count to 100 in different ways and that they are now 100 days smarter. With Streun’s pointer, he led them in counting to 100 by fives and 10s, then zoomed out in a superhero fashion. Streun added, “The kids think it is great! They all debate with me about the fact that they KNOW that was Mr. Konishi. It just puts the icing on the cake for our 100
th day of school celebration.”