By By ERIKA PICKLES / Niles Daily Star
NILES – Teachers recognize that parents getting involved with their child's schoolwork is not only important, but provides quality time for the parent and child to spend together.
It also gives the parents a chance to see and understand what their children are learning in the classroom.
Marla Arnold's first grade class at Eastside Elementary School had a chance to bring home a fun project recently not only to incorporate parent participation, but also to celebrate Halloween.
For the assignment, children were asked to create Jack-o-lanterns and decorate them any way they wished. Categories included funniest, scariest and prettiest, with Eastside's second grade class judging the winners.
"The idea was to use a Halloween torn-paper contexts. Children were asked to create pumpkins out of orange construction paper and, with their parents, make a face from one of the three categories," Arnold said.
Jada Abrams won first place for her "prettiest" pumpkin face as she used yarn for hair and blush for the cheeks.
"My favorite part about making the pumpkin was putting on her hair. My grandma bought some yarn and braided the hair for me then I helped put it on. We put bows in her hair too. I feel happy that she helped me because I like the way it turned out," Abrams said.
Mahki Garrick won first place for the funniest pumpkin and said he enjoyed putting the nose and funny teeth on his face the best.
"My mom helped and it's a lot of fun when she helps me with work because we both do it together. My pumpkin was funny," he said.
Chase Rudell's pumpkin won the scariest award and it was easy to see why. His pumpkin had very sharp teeth and red eyes.
"The eyes are scary, but I liked them because I liked pumpkins and we did our real pumpkins last night so I wasn't as scared," Rudell said.
Arnold added that everyone who participated did a wonderful job and came up with excellent ideas.
"I have high expectations, especially when it comes to parents working with their children and this class did a very nice job. I haven't done an activity like this one, so I was hoping it went over well and it did," she added.