Students at Armstrong Elementary ended Halloween with much more than full bags of candy.
They also got a taste of sweet new learning experiences thanks to their school’s Pumpkin Spectacular, an annual event packed with spooky activities in writing, reading, math, and science.
Teachers cooked up a witches’ brew of age-appropriate fun for each grade level. Second graders made costumes for monsters, created haunted houses to build their knowledge of math facts, and wrote about what they thought it would be like if they were ghosts. Meanwhile, fourth graders put their science knowledge to work building catapults and launching candy corn pumpkins, applied their division skills to grouping pumpkins during spooky math, and completed Halloween writing activities.
“It can tend to be hard to get kids to want to do activities on Halloween because of the excitement,” explained second-grade teacher Sarah Katz. “This is our effort to keep them engaged and still teach all of the things that we need to be teaching.”
Parent volunteers provided supplies and pumpkins for the day’s spooky learning celebration. Then, members of the Dads Club, along with other parent and grandparent helpers, joined students on the field to design and carve their own pumpkins.
With assistance from Dads Club volunteer Fred Thomas, second graders Grant Phillips, Bertie Thomas, and George Lemkin created a pumpkin with googly eyes, a triangle nose, a row of sharp teeth, and a curvy mustache. Designing the mustache and teeth, the boys said, had been their favorite part of the project.
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Fred Thomas explained that the trio had learned about cooperation and how to overcome differences in artistic opinion.
“They were fairly collaborative,” he said. “They took turns. One kid drew a mouth, one did the mustache, nose, and eyes.”
Carrie Arnot was one of a creative group of second graders who created ‘Pumpkiny,’ The well-decorated pumpkin, she explained, had an unfortunate experience at an art factory, but was happy with its colorful adornments.
Fourth graders Lucy Lemkin, Stella Rowell, Riley Johnsen, Caroline Ziebarth, and Edith Garner collaborated to carve two pumpkins. Their favorite part of the project was getting to use “sharp objects,” which included cookie cutters and small, serrated carving tools.
Fourth-grade teacher Grace Kuehn said that students had enjoyed a wonderful day, and that carving with parents was the perfect way to end the educational festivities.
“Enhancing their learning by incorporating something that’s fun is always engaging,” she said, “and makes for great results from kiddos.”
