Lisle kindergartners celebrate 100th day
Statesman Benjamin Franklin must be popular among kindergarten teachers for saying, "Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn."
Since kindergarten lays groundwork for formal education, having a dynamic start reaps long-term benefits.
"I like teaching kindergarten because the kids are a lot of fun and it is amazing to see how much they grow and change within the school year," said Christy Klimes, who teaches at Scheisher Elementary School in Lisle.
"Come January, the students are completely different children than when they started back in August. It is amazing what they can do; and I love it."
Klimes, who is in her 15th year of teaching kindergarten, tells parents that her philosophy is to sell school to their children. The veteran Lisle teacher feels it is part of her job to make sure her students love school.
Young children thrive on being involved and interacting with classmates. A benchmark for kindergarten is to be able to count to 100.
On Wednesday, Feb. 3, the young students in all five kindergarten classrooms at Scheisher took an active part in celebrating the school's annual "100 Days of Kindergarten." The count began with the first day of school in August, and each day the students added another digit to the growing number.
"We have a '100 Club' that kids get certificates for once they can count to 100," Klimes said. "We use stickers instead of names to mark students' progress on a bull's-eye in our classroom so that the progress is discreet since they all obtain the goal at various times throughout the school year."
From the ceiling in the colorful classroom hang small, bright "100" signs. Several large charts contain students' names and what they would like to have 100 times. Some want 100 books, and others want 100 quarters, rocket ships or doggies.
On this 100th day in kindergarten, all the students wore their own personalized T-shirt creation along with a singular colorful hat they created at home.
Five-year-old Jacob Aalrust, who will turn 6 in March, wore a black baseball cap covered with green, blue, red and yellow eyes, the kind that move within a clear circular ring. He got help from his grandmother, Jacob said. She used hot glue to secure the 100 pieces.
"My hat has 100 objects," said Calla Helik, 5, who credits her mom with helping. "First, we went to the craft store to get the things. Then we put them on my hat and counted them."
The pink, red and silver hearts that fill the top of Calla's hat drew attention to long red-heart ribbons that hung from the edges of the hat and rested on her shoulders.
Six-year-old Sebastian Osslund was concerned that a couple of his 100 pennies came off his hat, but his teacher quickly reassured him that she put them safely aside for him.
When the time arrived for the parade of hats, the young students and their teacher lined up to join the other kindergarten classrooms. The serpentine line first took a loop around the small gym where parents and younger siblings waited to see the parade pass and catch a photo of their child.
The long procession then wound its way into every classroom in the school where older students enjoyed the colorful interruption to their school day. The younger children beamed with pride. As they passed the school office, secretaries waved and marveled at the variety of hats.
"You look awesome," one said to the collective students. "We are so proud of you," called another. "Happy 100th Day," was a common greeting.
In the large gym, the physical education classes stopped long enough to be impressed. With roughly 400 students in the school, the unique hat parade covered a lot of ground.
"I am so proud of them walking these long hallways," said Klimes as she led the parade wearing her own sequin-decorated 100 on a baseball cap.
The colorful spectacle included floral spring bonnets, regal bejeweled crowns, and sticker-covered fireman helmets. A cowboy hat was covered with small western stickers, and a Native American band sported feathers. Other unique creations used beads, pompoms, buttons, paper chains, cotton balls and every shiny item imaginable. No two were alike.
Back in their kindergarten classrooms, teachers with parent volunteers organized activities for the students using the 100 theme. There was a 100-piece puzzle, 100 numbers in a jar, and building a tower using 100 red cups. Some students tried drawing a picture of how they might look when they are 100 years old.
In the hallway, students with parent helpers could try their luck in keeping a hula hoop circulating or a ball bouncing 100 times.
The extraordinary school day concluded with a party snack consisting of a single oblong cracker and two peanut-free circular cookies. The young students were so involved with their counting, coloring, wearing, bouncing, parading and participating in their 100th day of school, it seems that old Ben Franklin (who coincidentally graces the $100 bill) would be pleased that this was one lesson well learned.
• Joan Broz writes about Lisle. Her column appears regularly in Neighbor.