It started when a parent rented a garden plot in the pea patch at the Mercer Island community center. Harvesting pumpkins is now a 15-year tradition for Mercer Island Learning Lab preschoolers and their parents.

“We’ve been coming up every year for 15 years,” said Judy Witmer, teacher. “We plant in the spring … we plant pumpkins, beans and sunflowers, and harvest it. Parents and kids come up and weed in the summer.”

The Mercer Island Learning Lab is a cooperative preschool that invites parent involvement in the classroom, citing research showing that “meaningful parent involvement in school is one of the most powerful predictors of successful student achievement.”

For more information about the school, go to www.mercerislandlearninglab.org.

A child runs along the hillside on the way to the community center pea patch with the Mercer Island Learning Lab class on Friday, Oct. 18.

Teacher Judy Witmer talks with parents as she picks a pumpkin.