Week Two: Monday

Monday morning the kids arrived at school to find the baby GPPE sitting in the quad in the exact spot his egg had been. (GPPEs always return to their hatching spot.)

He was an instant hit and the crossing guard reported they had a problem all week long with parents getting out of their cars to really quickly snap pictures of him (thus blocking the drop-off).

He was constantly surrounded by kids.  They couldn't keep their hands off him.  They groomed him constantly.  The petted him him so much there was purple hair all  over the yellow tablecloth at the end of the day.

Close up of his face.  Since he's a baby, he only has one tooth.

As soon as school started the kids began pestering their teachers about the purple paper.  At first recess (and then lunch and afternoon recess) they took turns placing the purple paper into his mouth.

(Pictured from the  back) He's made out of plywood covered in stuft-animal-like hair.  I attached an old pillow case (and later plastic bags as he got  larger) to the back to collect his 'food.'  He's held together with screws and industrial type staples.












At the end of the day I took him home and emptied out all of his 'food.'  Most of the kids did a fantastic job and I was thrilled with all the good deeds they'd reported.  But...  A few kids put in people food (aka garbage) - the worst being a piece of cheese covered in mayo.  In a perfect world I would have had a volunteer guarding him during recess /  lunch, but that wasn't possible so I put up with the small amounts of garbage (luckily it wasn't  much).  Or at least I put up with it until Thursday...

Week Two: Tuesday

Since the kids did such a great job of feeding our GPPE, he grew overnight:

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And to increase the fun, I took 20 or so of the kids' good deed and turned them into signs to hang around him.  The signs (more or less) said:


Julie S. from Mrs. Smith's class says Kathy showed FRIENDSHIP when she loaned her neighbor a pencil.  


Kids and parents lined up along the wall to read them.  Yeah!




The kids spent all day petting him, talking to him (and about him) and feeding him.  Another success!

Week Two: Thursday

The kids arrived at school to find that the GPPE had not grown that day (oh the disappointment!).  This was preplanned on my part, but I used the feeding him garbage as the excuse and sent all the classes an official 'Fax.'  I put it in the teacher's boxes the night before.

Facsimile

The Society for the Preservation and Domestication of

One-Eyed, One-Horned, Giant, Purple People-Eaters

PO Box 01134

Cincinnati, OH  95037

Date:          9/29/2011

To:            All FAKE SCHOOL Students

From:         Priscilla P. Parley, President

The Society for The Preservation and Domestication of

One-Eyed, One-Horned, Giant, Purple People-Eaters

Pages:         1

**********************************************************

Message:     It has come to my attention that Fake School Students are not doing a good job of caring for their Purple People-Eater.  I understand that students have been feeding him people food and even worse, trash.  I heard that students have tried to climb on his back and pull on his horn.  This is unacceptable.

                Fake School School has been trusted to love, care for, and feed a very special creature.  If you don’t do a good job, he will not grow.  And how embarrassing for him if he returns to his home as a SHORT, One-eyed, One-horned, Giant, Purple People-Eater because the students at Fake School did not care for him well enough.  So please, today is the last day to feed him.  Do the best job you can.  Feed him.  Show him how wonderful you are.  Be kind to him.  Help him to grow.

                We don’t want a SHORT Giant, Purple People-Eater.

The teachers (and my kids) reported back that most of the classes had discussions on respect / disrespect.  It turned out to be a good experience (although the real reason I did it was because I didn't have enough plywood to make five stages of growth for the GPPE).

Week Two: Friday

The kids arrived at school to find the GPPE had more than doubled in size and now stood almost eight feet tall (including his  horn which is hard to see in the photo).  The sign behind him says, 'Buuuurrp...' (Because that's how you tell a GPPE is full grown of course) and hanging from the wall, his mouth and his horn are wooden tiles with letters and numbers on them.
  

Bigger picture of our GPPE.  The tiles on the wall are held on by tape.  The tiles on him are strung on fishing wire.  His fur looks kind of flat in this picture (and not very purple on my screen), but he's really quite vibrant and soft.  He also has curly eyelashes (which again ended up being braided into intricate designs each day).








I attend Friday Assembly again and congratulated the kids on doing such a fabulous job of making the GPPE grow.  I announced the winning class (best tasting good deed) and explained the next game (picking up the burp).  Here's a sort-of version (I'm terrible at following scripts, but wander all over the place in the moment) of what I said.  Again, I hammed it up.

Oh my gosh you guys, I had no idea how big they got.\!  I guess that’ s why he’s called a GIANT, purple people-eater.  Cause he’s giant!

Well, you guys did a pretty fantastic job of feeding him.  Yes, there were a couple kids who thought he might like salami and cheese or grapes, but overall he was thrilled with all of XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX’s Good Deeds and we can see that by how big he’s grown.

We have to be a little careful of him now that he’s full grown.  Don’t go behind him.  Don’t climb on him on be too rough.  Don’t feed him anything else.  He’s full.  In fact, he’s…  Oh, we’ll get to that in a minute.  But if we are too rough, he’ll have to go live somewhere else until it’s time to fly to Kazakstan and that would be sad.

So…  You want to know who had the BEST tasting Core Value all week long?

IT was <FILL IN BLANK HERE>.  Woo Hoo!  So I will come by Mrs. <> class right after Assembly to give them instructions on picking a name for our GPPE.

We still have another job to do though.  Because you noticed that he burped.  And what did he burp…

Core Values of course.  And he’s made a bit of a mess.  In fact, he’s going to spend the next week burping core values.  You can see them stuck to the wall around his head.  They are little wooden tiles with letters on one side and numbers on the other.

It’s going to be our job to pick up all the core values he burps and take them back to the classroom.  Now not today.  And not over the weekend.  And not before school.  But starting Monday during recess and Lunch time, it will be your job to find all the places he has burped core values and collect them.

You can only take core values that have your grade number on them.  So if you are in 2^nd grade, you can only take #2.  If you are in 6^th grade, you can only take #6.  And to make it fair, each kid is only allowed to collect ONE.  SO if you find tile on Monday then you can’t get any more.  If you see one on Tuesday, you can’t even touch it.

And no fighting.  If Mrs. PRINCIPAL, or a yard duty, or a teacher sees any fighting over tiles, they will take them and throw them right in to the garbage.  And that would be horrible.  Got it?

Got it.  Only at lunch and recess (Not before school) and only one per kid the entire game and only your grade level.  No fighting or problems.

Okay, and today in your teacher’s boxes is a special scroll.  And on that scroll is a secret word (show example).  When you take the burp tiles back to class you use the letters on the other side to spell your secret word.   

Any class that spells out their entire word – meaning all the letters, none of them missing.  And they have to play fair, no cheating – well those classes, they will get a batch of one-eyed, one-horned, giant purple people-eater cupcakes, in the flavor of their choice.

Can we do it?  Look for tiles.  One per kid.  Spell the words.  Next Friday I’ll come back and announce the winners.

 Then when the kids went back to their class they received the scroll and instructions (See post Week Two: Friday Preparation).

I class that won the 'best tasting good deed' contest received a special notice  (I mounted it on heavy purple paper and put a purple bow on top to make it cute).  I delivered it personally and helped them vote to pick a name for our GPPE.

 

The name the class picked was... Purplezilla (Purple Priscilla was a close second, but the class had more boys than girls).

Week Two: Friday Preparation

I did quite a bit of preparation for this day, much of it way in advance.  The Burp tiles are a 8 foot by 4 foot very thin piece of plywood cut into 250ish rectangles.  I painted them white on both side.  Then I divided them by grade and painted grade numbers (1 - 6) on one side.  On the other side, I put the letters to our school core values.  I only wanted it to be possible for one class per grade to win, so I painted them like (this is sixth grade - I gave them the shortest word as they were the least likely to get excited about participating):

C - 8 tiles
A - 6 tiles
R - 1 tile
I - 5 tiles
N - 3 tiles
G - 7 tiles

It was important to me to use wood as I was worried about rain and / or kids destroying them.  I had also hoped to use them again, but so many didn't make it back to me that it isn't possible.

I also made scrolls (1 for each class) of the word the classes were to spell out.  I was going to just make single-paged printer-paper posters, but that just didn't seem impressive enough, so I hand painted them  (I ended up purchasing a quart of purple house paint from Home Depot.  It was the cheapest way to do all the signs).

Some of the finished scrolls. 













I rolled them up and tied them with a pretty ribbon (not purple, but I was worried about my budget).  I attached a small tag with this note:

Dear «Teacher»’s («Grade» Grade) Class –

As you may have noticed, your Giant, Purple People-Eater has burped and made a HUGE mess of your school.  It is your job to collect all the core value tiles that have your grade number on them.  In this scroll is the secret word that you need to spell using those tiles if you want to earn Purple, People-Eater cupcakes.  It will be hard, but you can do it!

And remember, you may only collect tiles during recess and lunch!

Thank you,

Pricilla P. Parley