Students at Happy Valley Elementary recently got the chance to express their creativity while working on their reading skills.

As a project during the month of October, the students in Becky Simerly’s second grade class completed the “Pumpkin Book Report” project.

For the project, the students were asked to select a book to read. After they finished reading the book, the students were tasked with completing a report on the book and decorating a pumpkin to look like a character from their chosen book.

Each year the class does a family project, and this year the students were asked to get their family’s help in decorating their pumpkin.

“They could use any size pumpkin and use anything they wanted to decorate it,” Simerly said.

Simerly said she was pleased with the work done by her students and was impressed with how creative some of the pumpkins were.

Students chose a wide variety of characters for their pumpkins including Clifford the Big Red Dog, Minions, the Grumpy Cat, Nemo and Dory, Kung Fu Panda, and the witch from Room on the Broom.

“Several of them did Halloween themed books, so we read all of them on Halloween,” Simerly said.

In fact, Halloween turned into a day filled with reading and stories for the children. In addition to reading some of the books chosen by their classmates for the pumpkin project, the children were treated to a visit by students in the Storytelling program at East Tennessee State University. The ETSU students spent part of the day telling stories for the children.

The school also hosted their Accelerated Reader celebration that day. The AR program rewards students who earn points by reading books assigned to their grade level and then completing a small test about the book.