When you walked down the hall towards Mrs. Aguado’s fourth grade class all you could see were carved pumpkins everywhere! There were spiders, snowmen, ghosts, mummies just all kinds of jack-o’-lanterns.

Mrs. Aguado (fourth grade english & language arts teacher) came up with a great idea for her students to have fun and learn at the same time. They were asked to carve pumpkins, paint pumpkins and just get plain ol’ creative with their pumpkins. Once they finished their pumpkin creations they were asked to write a ‘how to’ paper. Step by step directions, using proper english of course.

Mrs. Aguado had several teachers read the ‘how to’ papers and pick which paper was the best based on directions, grammar and punctuation. Madison Dickerson’s paper was chosen as the best written. She did really well explaining how she made her pumpkin snowman, step by step.

Then eight students from each grade level voted on which pumpkin they thought was the best. Well, it was such a hard decision because they all were really good, and creative but Reese Janek’s pumpkin was voted the best.

I asked Reese what he thought about his pumpkin winning and he said, “I am happy that mine won. It took me about two hours to carve it. I got my idea from off the internet.”

“I have in the past always had pumpkin contests with my students and I was able to bring it to my fourth grade class and make it a fun learning experience. The students did a great job on the jack-o’-lanterns and on their written papers. I am very proud of them,” smilingly explained Mrs. Aguado.

Another great day at Stafford Elementary!