Pandemic aside, students throughout the Crescenta Valley prepare for Halloween fun.

By Lori BODNAR, intern
Despite the pandemic local elementary schools are hosting pumpkin decorating contests including one at Valley View Elementary School. Pumpkins can be cute, creepy or crazy. “Let your creativity flow, for anything goes” seems to be the call of the day except for a specific instruction: no carving pumpkins (for safety reasons). Students can use paint, beads, fabric, feathers, buttons, pipe cleaners, hats, clothing, etc. to dress up or accessorize their masterpiece.
Valley View students need to submit a picture of themselves with their decorated pumpkin before Oct. 30 by uploading it via the online notice board Padlet, which can be used by teachers and students to post notes on a common page. Refer to the school for the Padlet link if interested in participating in the Valley View Pumpkin Decorating Contest. (https://padlet.com/ljenks/sl0ax4wrhc6d7v18) Artificial pumpkins and real pumpkins are both allowed, but real pumpkins cannot be carved or hollowed out for the contest. When submitting the picture with the pumpkin, the student’s name, grade, and teacher, along with a description of the pumpkin, need to be included.
This is the first year Valley View Elementary is hosting the pumpkin decorating contest.

“One of the second grade teachers, Lisa Jenks, originally came up with the idea and is helping to organize the pumpkin decorating contest,” said Valley View PTA President Hili Revzan. “This year has obviously been a challenging time for students, teachers and families. Our hope is to maintain the strong feeling of community that we have at Valley View. We hope that this pumpkin decorating contest can be one way to bring creativity and fun to the kids. I can’t wait to see what the students come up with!”

Decorating pumpkins first originated in Ireland and Scotland, when centuries ago people would carve scary faces into turnips or potatoes and put them near windows or doors to frighten away a legendary ghostly figure named “Stingy Jack” or “Jack of the Lantern” who mythically roamed around with a burning coal inside of a hollowed-out turnip. The tradition spread to England where people made carvings out of big beets as well. When people from these countries immigrated to America, they brought the Halloween tradition with them and discovered that pumpkins, a fruit native to America, made for the perfect jack o’ lantern.

Mountain Avenue Elementary is also hosting a pumpkin decorating contest, as well as a Halloween cake-decorating contest. Its pumpkin decorating rules are the same as Valley View Elementary. However, the deadline for students to upload a picture of themselves with their decorated pumpkin or decorated Halloween cake is Sunday, Oct. 25 since Mountain Avenue Elementary is having a Halloween Family Fun Night online on Monday, Oct. 26 at 6:30 p.m. for spooky stories and fun games. The names of the winners of the pumpkin-decorating and cake-decorating contests will be announced that night. Students should upload a picture of themselves with their decorated pumpkin to the Padlet at https://padlet.com/jrscott2016/fj9ehi091h7v5364. For the cake decorating contest, students can bake and decorate a cake with their favorite spooky or happy Halloween design and then submit a picture or a 10 second or less video of the student with their cake to the Padlet link at: https://padlet.com/jrscott2016/xt7k81g6yn7qz2z. The Mountain Avenue Elementary event is being organized by PTA member Rachel Gagliardi.

In Tujunga, Our Lady of Lourdes School is gearing up for fall with a pumpkin patch, drive-in movie and spooky hallways bringing fun and Halloween to OLL kids. With everyone still stuck at home for distance learning, the PTO is creating some exciting (and safe) in-person activities during October.

Recently, OLL held its second annual pumpkin patch complete with a photo background, inflatables, hay bales to play on and lots of bright orange pumpkins ready for carving. Practicing social distancing and providing a curbside pick-up option, the pumpkin patch was a safe and fun way for students and families to connect at school.
OLL kids were glad to visit their campus and see familiar faces while having fun selecting the best pumpkin for their Halloween carvings. OLL will have a virtual decorating contest in which kids will send in photos of their carved, painted, glittered, bedazzled, bejeweled, be-anythinged pumpkins.

Kids and families will also be able to attend drive-in movie night at OLL. Movie night is a hugely popular event and fundraiser held each fall. In pre-COVID years, families would meet outside at the school for a movie, bringing blankets and chairs for the cool fall evening temperatures and enjoy burgers, hotdogs and popcorn. This year there will be a safely distanced drive-in in which the eighth graders will sell car-to-car as a way to still practice social distance regulations. This year’s movie will be the ever-popular “Coco.”

On Halloween, OLL PTO will host a Haunted Hall of Treats so kids can creep along the dark and spooky school halls for a haunting maze of fun. When they emerge, kids will be given a bag-o-treats. Each class will choose a costume contest winner during their Zoom lessons that day as well.