PORT TOWNSEND — Halloween generally is defined by dressing up, eating sweets and asking for handouts, so the staff at Grant Street Elementary School decided to shake up things a bit this year.
“We wanted to provide an alternative to the standard Halloween activities and make the season more about sharing,” said Dorothy Stengel, who teaches one of three combined first- and second-grade classes.
“We also wanted to teach them about the yearly harvest.”
Stengel said the idea was “to make Halloween more family-friendly.”
Stengel said the kids jumped right into Friday’s activity, which was to make “stone soup” that would be shared among the three classrooms.
This is in reference to the fairy tale where hungry people cook a bountiful meal that begins with a stone in boiling water to which each person adds a little something.
On Friday, many of the fresh vegetables for the stone soup came from the small garden across the street from the school that the kids have maintained.
Stengel said that some of the ingredients came from home.
The classes began slicing and mixing the food in the early morning, sharing a substantial, nutritious lunch.
Stengel found that the kids, even if they were still mad for candy, knew a lot of the concepts.
“A lot of them are already familiar with the idea of the harvest,” she said.
“I ended up learning from them.”
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Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.