BUCHANAN — Moccasin Elementary School students and their parents got a head start on Halloween celebrations last Friday at the school’s second annual Spooky Science Night.

Nearly 150 children and their parents came back to the school Friday evening in full Halloween costume. Both children and adults got in the spirit of the holiday, dressing up as everything from pirates and princesses to ghouls, witches, zombies, animals, football fans and movie characters.

Third grader A.J. Hanson had one of the simpler costumes as he wore a sweater vest and donned a mask to become an old man. He and his mother, Ashley, attended last year and he was excited to come back. A wide variety of superheroes were also on hand including fourth grade twins Chance and Payton Tucker dressed as Superman and a ninja.

Others had more elaborate costumes and were often joined by parents who got in the spirit of the holiday and also dressed up. Gunnar Mollberg and his daughter, Ella, dressed up as the grim reaper and a cat, while Barb Chappell and her daughter, Lydia, dressed up as a witch and an Egyptian princess.

Spooky Science Night serves several purposes. It combines academics with fun activities to make learning enjoyable and entertaining. It also doesn’t take away from instructional time during the school day when the Halloween parties are moved
to after school.

Moccasin staff members put their heads together over the last few weeks to come up with the family friendly activities. The result was a mix of events found in the gym and first-floor classrooms as well as outside of the school.

Children could visit different classrooms to take part in spider races, make spooky spectacles, build tiny haunted houses and create their own “gooey gobs of slime”. In between, tables were set up in the hallway, each with an estimation jar filled with a variety of items students could win if they guessed the correct number of items in each jar.

The gym had three activities for families: “put George back together” where students learned about body parts, make a creepy hand and make a mummy. In the last activity, students took turns being the mummy as they wrapped rolls of toilet paper around each other.

While Principal Mark Nixon retired his “mad scientist” persona from last year, he and other staff members were all on hand to guide families through the different activities.

Teacher Chris Rettig and speech pathologist Maggie Patnoudes took over the “Bursting Boos and Popping Pumpkins” outdoor activity Nixon oversaw last year. They helped children mix vinegar, baking soda and either green or orange coloring in a bag which the children then shook and tossed across the sidewalk before the bags burst.