Halloween carnival a blast at Highland Park school

The annual Halloween Carnival at Highland Park Early Primary School continued Tuesday as parents and teachers joined forces so costume-donned students could have an educational, fun-filled day.

One major distinction to the school's ninth annual celebration - one that staff, parents and Principal Mark Irvin pointed out - was the lack of sugar the kids consumed.

"Rather than getting bogged down with all these candy bars and snacks, they get a cookie, but they frost it themselves and they can design and mess around with it," Irvin said.

"It's good to see the kids having fun, walking around together, having a lot of team work on some of their games, and I love that there's no candy, of course, cause they will get plenty tonight," Lori Alisch, who's daughter, Marrin, attends first grade at Highland Park, said.

Alisch was dressed up as a witch, Marrin was Rapunzel, and her 5-year-old, Jasper, a cowboy.

The goal, Irvin said, was to have the perfect mix of fun and learning.

"Fun can be fun, but you can also always be learning at the same time," Irvin said, adding that booths with educational games and puzzles were core to the carnival.

"They do some games, some face painting and they put together little skeleton puzzles," Irvin said. "So it's all activity - going from game to game, building puzzles. There's also the socialization part, where they learn to interact with each other."

Teachers had spent time after school the day before setting the gym up for the carnival. Throughout the entire school day, aside from a lunch break, two or three classes at a time rotated to attend the carnival. The children put on their costumes in their classrooms before going to the carnival.

Costumes ran the gamut, from Batman and Ninja Turtles to ghosts, nurses, gladiators and witches, among others.

The volunteer turnout, teachers and Irvin said, was enormous.

"This year was really good because we've lots of volunteers," first grade teacher Danelle Bakke said. "I had a lot of parents show up, too."

"A lot of our parents come in and they volunteer, so they're running the little booths, the stations and the games," Irvin said.

Communication was the key, Bakke said. The turnout was a result of the parents being better informed.

Every year the carnival has gotten better, Bakke said, as the good things were kept, some were improved and the parts that didn't work taken out.