Students learn the meaning of Thanksgiving.
By: Melissa Hayes
MONROE A group of students wearing pilgrim hats made of construction paper sat around tables in the gymnasium Nov. 19 turning ordinary paddle ball games into works of art with the help of colorful paint and some cotton balls.
The students are in Danielle Kelton’s fourth-grade class at Woodland School and they were taking part in what has become a tradition over the past few years.
As Ms. Kelton’s students completed their projects, Jennifer Carollo walked in with her fourth-grade class, who were wearing colorful construction paper headbands with feathers, and carrying painted flowerpots.
"Can someone tell me what Thanksgiving is?" Ms. Kelton asked.
Timothy Shangle in Ms. Carollo’s class answered, "It’s about the pilgrims and Indians meeting each other."
Student Zaihab Abbas elaborated.
"It means the Indians helped the pilgrims during hard times," she said.
"It’s about being grateful for what we have," Zachary Levine said.
After the students discussed the meaning of Thanksgiving, the teachers called one student from each class at a time to exchange gifts.
Ms. Carollo’s class had painted flower pots and placed bulbs in them.
"We did flower pots to represent how the people grew their food," student Victoria Dini said.
Julius Park said he painted flowers on his pot because that’s what they planted.
Danny Marsh, Jeremy Roth, Jordan Jimenez and Sameer Verma in Ms. Kelton’s class painted similar designs on their paddles.
The boys mixed various colors and created designs and textures that resembled the many variations one might see in sandpaper.
"We mixed as many colors as possible," Danny said. "That was our goal."
Monica Cameron was extremely creative in designing her paddle.
"That’s the sea," she said pointing to the handle which she painted blue and added white wave caps to.
"It’s Hawaii. I tried to do the best I could."
After the gift exchange, students moved to the other side of the gym where parents and staff volunteers had set up a Thanksgiving feast.
Elizabeth Paone, Lisa Gimbut, Denise Jimenez and Lilia Hruszanyk all volunteered to cook different dishes.
The kids ate rolled up turkey filled with stuffing, stuffed potato skins, corn, mashed potatoes, fruit salad, mini pumpkin pies and pilgrim hats made out of chocolate covered marshmallows atop a fudge stripe cookie.
"This stuff is really good," said student Alyssa Talalai.
Ms. Kelton sat down with a group of pilgrims and Indians. She asked the students dressed as pilgrims, "So was your journey long and hard or was it fun?"
Several students replied that it was long and hard.
"We read about different pilgrims, what they were really like and what they wore," said Ryan Flood.
The students have been learning about regions in social studies and this was part of their studies on New England.
"We’re learning how pilgrims came over," she said.