Taking a step up to create relationships with the Arlington elementary students. Ms Neilson’s child development class made monsters for Pioneer’s students. 

Developing bonds to help support the younger generation when moving up in grades is a critical part of helping them grow. From just creating the monsters to then putting a face behind the name for the students to connect with. 

“I believe Ms. Nielsen just wanted to try something new. This is the first year that we’ve ever interacted with the first graders, other than just giving them felt monsters. And I feel like she wanted us to get to know our first graders, that we were giving these monsters to,” Kenzie Cooper (‘29) said.

As well as getting a fun monster made specially by an older kid, the students also get to experience what high school life will be like. Giving them something to look forward to as they get older. From seeing CTE classes to learning what high schoolers do in different classes. This day gives them ideas for what type of courses they may want to take. 

“Monster Day is an activity that we do in child development where we work with little kids from elementary, from Pioneer, and we bring them over and we do different stations around the school and do different types of activities, like all the career classes, and we teach them everything how to do each of the career things and to see what they like and just learn new things,” Itzel Lopez (‘28) said. 

But it’s not only about the younger kids learning, it’s about giving the high school students time to explore working with kids as a possible career. Giving them responsibilities and tasks when working with these kids. 

“She wanted to try this because she wanted us to develop an understanding of how teaching works… feel like it gave them something to look forward to, something to look excited for in high school,” Dezra Guerrero (‘26) said.