Kindergarteners bundled up in rain slickers and rubber boots gathered around the yellow school bus.

"We have a history with the rain," Riverview School teacher Leslie Carroll said.

Parents, teachers and volunteers guided the children in groups from the bus to Grandpa's Pumpkin Patch in Crabtree on Oct. 21.

The patch has been the No. 1 choice for kindergarteners since Carroll can remember.

"It's so nice and affordable," she said. "This one is always so family-friendly."

Each class took a hay ride pulled by a green tractor, played in the haystack maze and combed the pumpkin field.

For the ride, maze and a pumpkin, students were charged only $1.50 each.

Adults took groups of four or five children into the muddy patch to pick out the perfect pumpkin, some with umbrellas, but none bothered by the rain.

As children returned from the patch, they sat for a picture.

"This is the perfect one for me!" Chloe Wilcox said as she waited to take a picture. She is going to carve it into a jack-o'-lantern. "It's gonna be a ghost."

Chloe will be a Beaver cheerleader for Halloween.

"I wish I could cut the top off of it so I could empty it out," another girl said.

A third girl said she's going to make pie out of her pumpkin.

Meanwhile, a young student posing for a picture dropped her pumpkin, too big and slippery for her to hold on to.

A group of boys came back in from the field, all eager to carve their finds.

"It's heavy!" one small boy exclaimed, hefting a rather large pumpkin above his head. "I'm not whining!"

"It's slippery!" another said.

Colton Barley, 5, was playing in the hay maze, jumping from bale to bale.

He was in charge of picking three pumpkins, one for himself and the others for his family.

Laura Barley, Colton's mother, said this was the first time they'd come to a pumpkin patch.

"We're going to have to take a hose to the buses," Lee Remington commented as the children used the muddy hay bales as slides.

As the morning wore on, the rain let up a little bit.

Mallorie Borntrager, 5, stood near the animals. Three areas were set up: One with chickens, one with two lambs, and one with a goat and her two kids.

"It's heavy and kind of red," Mallorie said of her pumpkin.

Mallorie was cold and wet, and ready to go home to get warm, her mother said.

Her sister, Daysie, 3, said this was not the first time they'd been at a pumpkin patch.

"My grandpa has a pumpkin patch," she said.

Treanna Shreves-Gray, 6, said she was going to be a sweetheart bat for Halloween.