By Hyung Seok LEE

CV Weekly Intern

Valley View Elementary kicked off the fall spirit with its annual Harvest Festival. After months of preparation by the school’s PTA, Valley View students were invited to school on Saturday, Oct. 30 where they were able to enjoy traditional carnival games right on their own campus.

“All the effort we put in is worth watching the kids and their families enjoy the event,” event coordinator Marilyn Wright said.

After nearly two months of planning, over 200 people attended the event. All the game booths were sponsored by a teacher. The sixth grade class sponsored a Haunted House with a $1 entrance fee, and the fifth grade class headed the snack bar to raise money for its trip to Catalina Island next year. The adults pitched in their help by volunteering in each game booth as well as making the food. The Korean PTA at Valley View cooked traditional Korean BBQ and served over 200 plates. Tacos from Tacos Tacos were available as well.

“This is the best carnival I’ve ever been to. I’m very happy to go to this school,” student Kevin Bedrosian said.

Students raced to different booths hoping to win tickets. The tickets earned them prizes available at the prize booth. Cakes were awarded to the winner of the cake walk.

At Mountain Avenue Elementary the school had its traditional Halloween carnival over the same weekend. Booths of chance were set up along the middle field where kids could try their skills at games like the duck pond where they could scoop up a duck or ring toss to try to get a ring around a spider’s leg. One of the more popular games was the Sponge Toss where kids in the lower grades threw sponges at sixth graders.

Face painters also transformed the kids into princesses, monsters or any number of characters. For Mountain Avenue sixth graders the carnival has become a right of passage as they end their elementary school career and prepare for middle school.

The event is a fundraiser but organizers said the event usually just breaks even.  The real reason for the carnival is to keep this long-standing Mountain Avenue tradition alive and to give the kids a welcomed break from reading, science, writing and homework.

Mary O’KEEFE contributed to this story

  carnivals, elementary schools