Has this teach taken it too far?

First, thank you all for the feedback. While I stand by my belief that the teacher over-reacted, I now see this all in a new light. My solution was to talk to the teacher and principal to let them know how I felt about the punishment and how I thought this should have been handled. I then re-arranged my schedule so I could spend one day a week helping in the classroom. What an eye opening experience! My daughter goes to an all day kindergarten from 8:45 am to 3:30 pm, Mon-Thurs. There are 25 students in her classroom. There are no TA, para-pros and TOO FEW parent volunteers. Yes, the teacher over reacted, but now I understand how overworked she is. When I am there I am able to help her with students who need some extra attention while she works with other students who need more help. I actually feel very bad that I have not been doing this all year long. I feel so strongly about it that when ever I run into another parent I let them know how much this school system needs parents to be in the classroom, not just doing PTO and fund raising. And I have found being in the classroom to be very rewarding! I had no idea how much of a help I could be to my child as well as the children in my community by spending one day a week in their classroom. Before I step off my soapbox, I would like to encourage everyone to find a way to volunteer on a regular basis in your child's class.
That being said, I have had a chance to use said poster putty, and it is awesome. I found myself rolling it between my fingers. LOL :)

BTY- She will be attending a different school next year.

I would Not be ok at all with the red stars either - is that a common practice at the school? I think it's horrific and akin to branding criminals as they did centuries ago. If this is commonly done at the school, I'd try very hard to find another school. That the stars wash off is meaningless - it forces a child to go through their school day branded. It's an invasion of your daughter's privacy as well - no one including a child should be forced to allow someone to draw on their body.

That said - marshmellows are tempting and I guess the poster putty is too. For a young child, I'd treat that as a learning opportunity - we don't take things from the board. The board is there for all to enjoy and if we all took things from it, there'd be nothing left of it.
Children do lie - schools and teachers overreact to it. Children mostly lie out of fear - the marshmellows are missing and Teacher is Very Angry and asks in an angry tone 'who did this?" Or comes bearing down angrily on a child and says "You did this."
Children live in the moment - they don't plan like adults or see ahead into the future like adults. In the moment, to get out of the scary moment that it is, children lie. "It wasn't me, Teacher."
It does not reflect on a child's character or lack of it yet schools will treat children who've lied like a criminal (though I've never heard of one putting stars on a child's hands before)
I don't ask children why they lie - common sense tells us why a child lies. They don't want to be in trouble and so in the scary moment, they try to end it with a lie.
Sadly teachers then focus in on the lying rather than on the real problem which is - helping the child to learn what they need to learn from this situation. This is what school is supposed to be about - learning.
Your daughter should learn from this - not to take things from the board. What's interesting to me is that she did it three days in a row - does she really want poster putty that badly? Or what? Some children enjoy the negative attention - only people close to the situation can explain why your daughter's doing this.
Does she like school? I can't really think that a few stale marshmellows or poster putty are that attractive to her - to me it sounds more like she's interested in upsetting the board displays. Does she like her teacher and her classmates? Has anything like this happened before? I could certainly understand a child not liking a school that brands its students with marks on their hands.

In any case, it seems to be over for now. I don't like how the school handled it but I can't know if it was a misdirected teacher handling it poorly or if the teacher was following bad school policy. In either case, I'd certainly keep my ears up in this school and try to have my daughter placed next year with the best teacher in that grade.
Good luck.

Yes I think this teacher has punish this child wrongly.she should have found out why this child is takeing things,maybe other kids are takeing from her,or she feels that she is being mistreated in some kind of way.maybe it's a behavior problem that she can't control.before a child is punish harshly teacher's and parents need to find out why this child is doing what they are doing.if the child just want to have her way and destroy things or take things that don't belong to her it is not the school fault and this child should be displine by her parents.this might be a child that just want to have her way because her parents let her do what ever she wants to do.if so the parents is not helping their daughter and things are going to get worse for the family.
When I first started reading this I laugh,and it seem cute that this child was doing this,but as I read more I saw that over a period of time with this behavior from this child can get anoying.because if my child made a project and the teacher put it on the hall display I would not want some other child to eat or mess up my childs work on the school hall board. I don't mean to sound ruff and I love kids and will take up for them if they mean right.(remeber morals,values and respect for others).

HI, I the feelings..(my son is going thr the same situation) I just sending E-Mail with all doctors recommendation on what to do and kept requesting the f.b.a. program (FUNCTIONAL BEHAVIOR ASSESSMENT) meet again with the principal and provide her his any doctors evaluation that you may have on your daughter. DO NOT ACCEPT, anymore for her teacher to treat her LIKE AN ADULT, kids deserve Respect and support, understanding the situation and Why are they doing something that as per the adult point of view is wrong. GET STRONG! i did and recently last week is when the gave the f.b.a program to my son. he is also 5 yrs with ADHD (no aggressive) when the Sped Repr. observed my son and provided the evaluation report to the principal they got in Shock!! the results were: the teachers are NOT prepare to deal with an ADHD student approaching the situation with a Bad Attitude, the main problems was the peer of his teachers. The school counselor gave them a Notification that if my the end of the school year which is in 2-1/2 my son behavior does not improve my son's Neurologist was taking legal action.

Get Strong.. your daughter DESERVE RESPECT!! (go sweet but strong) making all your points clear....also with no offense.. make sure that there is not family issues or any kind of problems that may are affecting your daughter behavior or actions.

is good that you are here!, this is a great website and good/educated people will give you good advices!!