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Elementary school carries on tradition of Valentine’s Day
The Vindicator (Youngstown)
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Jalyn Harper, a first-grader in Andrea McGoogan’s class, got into the spirit of Valentine’s Day.
The Vindicator (Youngstown)
Photo
Teacher Andrea McGoogan and a group of her first-graders talk into toy microphones during a Valentine’s Day party in their room Monday. The microphones were a present to each child from McGoogan.
By Jeanne Starmack
CAMPBELL
We all remember them.
Those shoeboxes, covered in crepe or construction paper and decorated with hearts and Cupids.
We cut slots in the lids and were hopeful that before the class party was over, our boxes would be filled with cards, special notes and candy.
We dutifully doled out the cards we’d signed the night before at home into other decorated shoeboxes. Maybe our teachers brought us cupcakes or cookies. Maybe there was some punch to drink.
Ahhh — Valentine’s Day in elementary school, when love was so simple.
It still is — even at Campbell Elementary School, where Jacob Gulu, 7, sits between two girls, Jalyn Harper, 7, and Nya Smith, 7, who have both declared him as their favorite Valentine in the room.
Does that make him nervous? “No,” he said with a shrug that suggested he can take it in stride.
Love, and tradition, were in the air at Campbell Elementary on Monday. For the five first-grade classes, the parties were in full swing at 2 p.m. Cards were being swapped. Candy was being collected. Jacob, who was wise enough not to declare a favorite Valentine, was getting ready along with the other first-graders in Andrea McGoogan’s classroom to play a game.
They would be stacking those little, colored candy hearts, another staple of the elementary-school Valentine’s Day celebration, on their desktops. Whoever could stack the most without the stack falling over would get to pick a prize from the teacher’s prize box.
Before the game began, they were eager to show off their Valentine gifts.
“It’s really fun, ’cause you can get a lot of candy,” said Nya, who sits in a row with her good friends Jacob, Jalyn and Vincenzo DiMartino, 6.
It’s even better than Halloween, agreed Nya and Vincenzo.
“’Cause I don’t feel like being scared,” Vincenzo explained.
Handing out the hearts for the stacking game was Katrina Layton, mother of Destiny Moscariello. Every holiday is a chance to get parents involved at Campbell Elementary, McGoogan pointed out. Parents had been in Friday to help in the decorating of the shoeboxes.
A few rooms down in Carolyn Matzye’s class, Courtney King, 6, had an actual mailbox-shaped Valentine holder, a gift from her grandmother, that she was using instead of a shoebox because she was absent Friday. Oh well, she agreed. Next year, she’ll make a shoebox for the first time.
Noah Ramirez, 7, who sits next to her, was gracious enough to explain how it was done.
They got a shoebox. They cut a slot in the top of the box and covered it all with paper. “I put some stickers on,” said Noah.
That’s the way to do it, all right.
Noah had just one suggestion for an improvement on the tradition: “Can we do bigger boxes next year?”