Procedures and the Planning Table

Well, the first week of kindergarten was a bit rough. Griffin felt there were too many procedures to follow (aka rules) and not enough fun. He decided he wasn't going back. Though on Friday we turned a corner. Griffin had music and movement with Mr. John that day. Mr. John looks and acts like he could be a direct descendent of the Pied Piper, so I knew Griffin would love any time spent at music and movement, and with Mr. John.
I was elated when Griffin climbed into the car that afternoon, animatedly talking about the FUN stuff they did that day. He finally got to see what was behind the curtain! (Mr. John's room is the stage in the gymnasium, behind a red velvet curtain.) He thought that was cool; and they did "fun stuff." (Yea!!!) Griffin told me they opened the curtain and pretended to do a performance for the school.
They also played a game called spider and the web. It was explained to me that several friends are the spider and web while others are bugs. Griffin was a Stink Beetle. (because what else would he be?) It was further explained to me that Stink Beetles show you their bottom and then "Ppff" they shoot stinky stuff at you. It is at this point that he exuberantly demonstrated this to me over and over again. (Aah, to be a five year old little boy ...)

Today when I came to pick Griffin up, he declared he went to the planning table. (The planning table is code for time out. It is here that one goes to "review procedures.") When we got home, I asked Griffin what he wanted to say to Ms. Amash about his behavior today. He replied, "I'm going to work really really hard to follow procedures at school and at home." I reassured him that I knew he always worked hard at those things and we all need extra reminders every once in awhile. I then asked him to draw a picture for Ms. Amash to show her how he would work to follow procedures. Well, this is what he drew ... (there is also an accompanying story which he dictated to me. It's not exactly on topic, but he is only 5 and you have to give him props for his creative imagination.)

"Ms. Amash wants some ice cream, but she doesn't know what to do. Do you know why? Because all the ice cream stores all ran out of ice cream." (FYI this is an illustration of Ms. Amash and the ice cream ball shooter machine invention)

"And so, she went to an inventor. The inventor invented a ice cream ball shooting machine. And when you press the button it shoots ice cream to each ice cream store. And then she can buy ice cream free every day. Because there's ice cream on the windows. She just scoops it off and walks away licking and humming. And then comes the ice cream monster. He eats the ice cream and the whole store. But not Ms. Amash, because she is at home.

The end."
"This is the ice cream monster. Isn't he scary? He name is Po-po-ca-pa."

Words and illustrations by Griffin