The journalism staff painted pumpkins during the class period for a little team building and to celebrate Halloween. Since they had been working hard and were caught up on stories, teacher Melonie Menefee decided to buy 21 pumpkins for the 21 different kids and gave them a chance to be creative.

“One of my goals this year was for the staff to have a team building activity at least once a month,” Menefee said. “It was a lot of fun watching kids who don’t usually interact much compare pumpkins and have fun doing something together.”

The students enjoyed watching each other create.

“It was a very fun, messy and relaxing day,” freshman Scarlet Carrillo said.  “Watching Iris V start over so many times was very funny. She ended up washing her entire pumpkin.”

Journalism students have weekly stories for the online newspaper and also work on UIL writing and editing practices weekly. This month, they will start working on yearbook every week as well.

“It was really fun and relaxing. It was nice to focus on something other than school work,” said journalism member Megan Wedhorn. “Also, eating a paint-splattered chicken nugget that was given to me by Iris V. was very interesting.”