A class of fifth- and sixth-graders from Bow Lake Elementary in SeaTac ate lunch on Feb. 5 - not in their school cafeteria but in an elegant restaurant with linen tablecloths.

They minded their manners since the meal served as the grand finale to a three-week series of etiquette lessons.

The SeaTac Airport Doubletree Hotel, a corporate sponsor for Bow Lake, hosted the lunch for Carlyn Roedell's Explorer class.

Explorer is a pilot program focusing on students in the Bow Lake area identified as having good academic potential, according to Roedell.

She taught students in the Highline District's Challenge program for gifted students at Valley View Elementary for 23 years.

When the school closed in June, Valley View students joined Bow Lake students in a newly rebuilt Bow Lake building in September.

The etiquette lessons centered on "good basic manners," including what's the little spoon above the plate used for, placing napkins on the lap and telephone manners, according to Roedell.

Reading, writing and math were weaved into the lessons as the students read about manners, wrote an etiquette book and figured out how to calculate a tip.

The kids also learned how to eat spaghetti.

"They loved that," Roedell noted. "They got to cook it up and eat it."

The lunch itself was "quite the experience," Roedell reported. "They did a great job."

Sitting down in the restaurant, the boys held out chairs for the girls.

Figuring out the tips was quite daunting and there were a couple of water glass spills, but the students had studied what to do if that happened.

Some of the students sampled spaghetti again. Others ordered toasted cheese sandwiches or hamburgers and remembered the rule to cut sandwiches in half if they are over one inch thick, Roedell added.

With the fancy meal over, students are working on their homework assignment-writing thank you notes to the Doubletree staff.