Mr. Lester Paints Our Pumpkin

Mr. Lester came to our classroom and painted a face on our pumpkin for the school pumpkin contest. This is the finished product. The students were amazed that Mr. Lester could paint the face without a pattern, stencil or anything. He just painted out of his head, like a real artist.

First we had to paint one side of the pumpkin with white paint.

We did this very carefully.

We almost painted the whole pumpkin. It was so fun to paint down the lines of the pumpkin.

Here Lester is showing us a pumpkin he painted for his wife.

We got to sit outside and observe him as he took the white pummpkin and began to apply paint with his brushes.

We watched him use different colors and blend them together. We saw him put dark colors around the edges of the design to add emphasis. It took 2 1/2 hours to complete the painting.

It was fun to watch the face change and form. Here he is making the teeth. Most of the kids liked the big nose and the funny tongue that hung down. We added some green plastic grass for his hair on top.

Here is the class with both pumpkins and with Mr. Lester. We are so glad he came to our class and shared his artistic talents with us. We enjoyed watching him paint. He also told us some riddles and then he sang us a song he wrote. We hope he comes back to visit. We loved our pumpkin even if it didn't win a prize in the contest. We were proud of our pumpkin and we enjoyed having it in our classroom shelf for a few weeks.

This is Mrs. Prevett's pumpkin. She won a prize. Good Job Mrs. Prevett's class!

Some of the other pumpkins from the pumpkin contest.

This pumpkin won a prize. It is from a Third Grade classroom.

Another Third Grade entry.

All the pumpkins were displayed near the office. Here are some of those pumpkins.

Cute pumpkins.

Cool pumpkins!

...more pumpkins

We liked this bat pumpkin.

I took this picture of a spider that was hanging down from its web on the path I was walking. Cool looking spider.

Career Day Visitors

Jay Hinkle (Dylan's Dad) from Albertson's. He is the store manager.

He told us to listen and learn to communicate well with others. He also told us all about his store and the many tools he uses. Then he gave us each a free cookie coupon.

Mr. Flores (Cassidy's Dad) is an iron worker. He builds tall buildings out of steel. He had lots of great tools to show us. He also told us how important it is to be prepared at all times. He brought each of us a cool head scarf. Thanks for coming!

Our Fall Garden 2010

Back in September we dumped a bunch of our "black gold" compost from our worm farm on to the garden site.

The students worked with their garden spades to turn the soil and mix in the compost.

Everyone worked very hard.

The next step was to smooth out the plot of soil.

Then we started digging holes for our plants.

We layed our the yardstick so we could line up our plants. Each hole got some water.

We planted a row of broccoli, a row of cauliflower, some red and green cabbage and some swiss chard and one lettuce plant.

Working together.

Helping each other.

Being so careful with each plant.

This was a fun experience for everyone. Since we planted in late September our plants have grown much larger. We've already eaten a few leafs of lettuce and Mrs. Abraham likes the Swiss Chard. That's the red plants you see.

We check our garden often. We have to remove the weeds and check for bugs. Sometimes we find something growing like these peppers. They are off a pepper plant I planted last spring. We also have discovered big and little green tomatoes growing on the plants that survived the summer heat. Hopefully they will turn red before the frost.

We love our garden. Come by and see things growing.

Texas Cowboys and Cowgirls

Making Leaf Prints