Southdown Celebrates Fall with Old-Fashioned Harvest Festival
Southdown Primary School throws a Harvest Festival celebration each fall and this year’s edition was packed with fun activities ranging from a hayride, interactive storytelling, scarecrow relay race and hay bale jumping to singing seasonal songs and even square dancing.
Kindergarten students officially kicked off the extravaganza a day before the rest of the school. The youngsters walked outside to the large open field adjacent to the building, chanted some words, sang a song and finished the job with the “magic pumpkin seed stomp.” By the time busses rolled in the next morning, nearly 400 pumpkins had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.
While Southdown Principal Michelle Marino remains mum on how parents and staff managed to “grow” so many pumpkins in just a few hours, she did report that students couldn’t believe their eyes at the sea of orange and the excitement generated helped jumpstart the day.
Southdown’s four grade levels took turns rotating through various “centers” or stations, which were created with harvest themes. PTA members assisted teachers and staff and helped the school pull off the day without a hitch.
Librarian Ellen Blanchard led an interactive Stone Soup story session featuring a variety of favorites. “Mrs. Blanchard had the children acting out storylines complete with props,” Mrs. Marino said.
Music teacher Susan Hahn led the youngsters on the always popular hayride, accompanied, as is tradition, by guitar playing monitor George Murphy. The sound of students singing in the back of the hay-filled truck driven by “Farmer Joe Cassidy” of the district’s buildings and grounds staff, echoed across the Southdown campus and drifted into nearby neighborhoods.
Physical education teachers Theresa Matthews and Chris Taylor along with speech pathologist Sarah Macaluso coordinated a cooperative relay race that involved stuffing paper into the clothes of a scarecrow and then jumping over hay bales to return to the starting line.
The principal herself led students through square dancing when it was their turn to rotate to that particular station. All that was missing from the day was a high ceiling barn. Activities at the pumpkin patch capped off the festival as students used colorful markers and plenty of imagination to decorate and personalize the pumpkin they picked.
“It’s a great day,” Mrs. Marino said. “The children have a fun common experience that springboards into writing tasks and math experiments back in the classroom. It’s time well spent.”
The school is located at the intersection of Southdown and Browns Roads, just a short walk from historic Coindre Hall. Southdown was built in 1954 and a large wing was added in 1958. It has long provided Huntington students with a strong classroom and special area education and Mrs. Marino said this year’s innovative and imaginative faculty and support staff is well on its way to continuing that tradition.
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