West Seattle schools: ‘Creepy Crawly’ celebration at Lafayette

Today, Lafayette Elementary second-grade teacher Dano Beal takes his Room 26 second-graders to Camp Long for their annual “Spider Safari and Feast,” a tradition for almost 20 years. On Monday, he was already in the spirit, dressed as a spider (above), while the entirety of Lafayette’s second grade – four classrooms – enjoyed their 15th annual “Spider and Creepy Crawly Tea.” In teacher Kayleen Diaz‘s class, we found students masquerading as amphibians:

And there was even amphibian – OK, frog, to be precise – bread:

Teachers Michael Fletcher and Sheila McBeth presided over a fun day too. This wasn’t just a one-day event, but rather a culmination of work that involved, according to Mr. Beal, “researching all sorts of creepy critters” as well as reports and more than 60 displays – all of the latter made of fruits and vegetables!

gina October 30, 2012 (9:21 am)

What, no gummi worms?

pam October 30, 2012 (10:02 am)

So they couldn’t do this on Halloween????

WSB October 30, 2012 (10:40 am)

This is something they’ve done every year for 15-plus years. Halloween (tomorrow), you’ll recall, is a short school day (for the whole district) … TR

Just Wondering October 30, 2012 (11:55 am)

Although, and I say this as a parent with kids at the school (one who participated in this last year, and had a blast making their creation), I’ve always been curious as to why these have to be made completely out of edible materials… which then are rendered IN-edible after they’ve been worked with, touched by spectators, and sat out all day. Just makes me a little uncomfortable at how wasteful that is when we have people, even in our own community, in need of a meal. :\

Mary October 30, 2012 (6:07 pm)

I agree it uses up food, but that’s a whole lot better than adding plastic to the landfills. At least the vegetable-bugs can be put in yard waste.

Just Wondering October 31, 2012 (11:19 pm)

Sure, and I get that, but how about recyclable materials found around the house? I’m sure people have plenty of things available for repurposing. They could rename it to something like “Litterbug Lunch” and talk about the importance of reusing things vs adding them to a landfill, as you mention.

Lee November 1, 2012 (2:03 pm)

I find it very odd that this is the school that banned Halloween.

WSB November 1, 2012 (2:05 pm)

They did not “ban Halloween.” That was a hyped-up headline some other news sources chose to use. They were one of multiple schools in the area that did not allow costumes on Halloween this year (others, as discussed in comments on previous coverage, have long had that policy) – TR

Lee November 1, 2012 (2:32 pm)

No costumes, food ect = no Halloween. I’m glad my kids got to enjoy it.

Dano November 2, 2012 (11:17 pm)

…yeah, I’m glad my “kids” got to enjoy it too!…… By the way, I’m the teacher in the picture….. The big goofy guy…… In a COSTUME…… Handing out FOOD…… We did this on Monday, October 29th. It was a GREAT day of celebrating what the kids learned about spiders, and insects, amphibians, etc…… AND we were able to tie all that wonderful learning together with the fun of Halloween…. Trust me, we DID NOT ban Halloween.

Just Wondering November 3, 2012 (4:25 pm)

Lee – Who said there was no food? I was in classrooms that had pretty big Harvest parties on the 31st. Plenty of food, games, activities, goodie bags… There were no costumes (and honestly, we were only one of two schools left that still allowed them anyway) because of the early dismissal and hassle involved with helping kids get in/out, keep track of all their things, etc.

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