A Zero the Hero Flop

Last year I decided I NEEDED a Zero the Hero for this year.  My friend Angie uses Zero and I thought that he was pretty cute and a great way to celebrate and practice those tens.  Zero the Hero makes an appearance on days of school divisible by 10 (10, 20, 30, etc).   Previously, tens days in my classroom were known as "Macarena Math Days" (or, more accurately, "Macaroni Math Days") and we would dance to Dr. Jean's "Macarena Math" and call it a day.  Effective?  Yes.  Adorable?  Not so much.  Memorable?  Probably not.

The other draw to using Zero the Hero was that Angie's Zero looks like this:

Isn't he darling?  Her mother-in-law re-purposed him from a chef puppet.  And, great news...Angie had two extra chefs!  She gave one to Lynne who cooked up (haha) this charming little Zero:

...and I was lucky enough to get the other.  Unlike Angie and Lynne, however, I cannot sew.  Strike two is I'm not too terribly crafty.  So here is Zero the Hero's before picture:

And after his makeover, he came out looking like this:

I believe he is the love child of Hulk Hogan and an extra from Aladdin.   Mr. T. is the godfather. 

Yes, he is wearing a du-rag;  I couldn't figure out Angie's wizard hat.  He also is completely held together with hot glue and if you look carefully, you can see part of his now-scraggly beard is styled with an accidental glue drop.  Hot stuff.




Because of his condition, this Zero the Hero zooms amazingly fast around the room to his song, Zero the Hero Celebrates by Jack Hartmann.  However, my Transition Train CD ended up having a scratch so there was no Zero song.  No zooming.  No singing.  What a flop!  The only good thing about my Zero the Hero introduction was this freebie book  from Inspired by Kindergarten Lynne found on Pinterest.  I read the entire post after presenting my dud and will do a much better job next year.  She had some cute stuff!

Amazingly enough, my kiddos LOVED Zero the Hero.  They practiced counting by tens very enthusiastically and checked on him all day long.  They can't wait for him to make his glorious return on day 20.

As with most failures, I learned a lot of things from my Zero the Hero debacle.  I learned hot glue does not pick out of puppet beards.  I learned Inspired by Kindergarten is a cute blog.  I learned you should always double check your CD's.   And I learned sometimes trying your best really is good enough.