Textbooks lay idle

Little ones with painted hands

Fall break’s end has come

In the classrooms of Parker-Bennett-Curry Elementary this week, a small group of students were learning, but not with worksheets, calculators or quizzes.

Drake Hinton and Omar Moncayo built models of Corvettes. Melissa Escoto made small pies. And Ajla Delic stuffed a scarecrow full of straw.

They were among the 55 Bowling Green City Schools students who took part in the fall-break enrichment programs at Parker-Bennett-Curry this week.

Drake and Omar, both 10, were part of the small group in the &#8220Corvettes, Corvettes Everywhere!” class. During the week, they researched the Bowling Green-built cars, visited the Corvette plant and museum and then built models of either the first Corvettes, built in 1953, or the 50th anniversary edition.

It was fifth-grader Omar’s first visit to the museum, but Drake, a fifth-grader at W.R. McNeill Elementary, had been before. He has a bunch of Corvette models.

In the &#8220Applelicious” class, fifth-grader Melissa, 10, and another group of students spent the week learning about the fall fruit. They made arts and crafts with apple themes, and made fruit pies Thursday. The room was scattered with pie shells as they prepared to write poems about apples.

And Ajla, 8, and the other students in the &#8220Fall into Spookiness” class were stuffing scarecrows. They also decorated pumpkins they got at Jackson’s Orchard and made spider hats.

The fall break enrichment classes are outside the ordinary classroom experience, said Parker-Bennett-Curry third-grade teacher Beverly Allen, who led the Applelicious class.

&#8220We don’t get to make a mess like this” during normal school days, Allen said, gesturing with a wide grin at her hay-strewn classroom.

Of course, it can’t last. Next week, the hay will be swept up, the books will be back on the desks and the students will be back to regular learning.

But winter break’s only nine weeks away.