Mansfield Times
Issue 1 Volume 1, March 2017
MTES
JHES
Mansfield Times Newspaper Editors
Grade 5: Katie Graff
Grade 5: Ryan Horn
Grade 6: Nick Moran
Grade 6: Gianna Zanoni
Grade 6: Sophia Lutzker
Student Spotlight - By the Editors of the Newspaper
Student Spotlight is a huge honor that doesn't go to just anyone. You have to be a hard-working student, kind to others, and demonstrating the core values we practice all year long. All of the winners were nominated by their teachers to become student spotlight. Congratulations to the winners!
October-JHES Emma Dolci
November-MTES Sydney Wolf
January-MTES Chloe Sheffield
February-JHES Alana DiPietro
March-MTES Ashley Schroeder
Core Value Winners - By Jessica Colletti, Samantha Colletti & Janine DiGerolamo
Winning an award isn’t just a time when people clap and say good job, It’s a memorable moment when people honor you in what you have accomplished. At MTES many students get awarded because they did a good deed. I am proud to introduce the students recognized as core value winners for January and February.
January-Politeness
Grade 3
Madeline Dileo
Luke Sarion
Mayua Abuissa
Villabon
Haley Pelehach
Nathan Hemmes
Matthew Caloiaro
Riley Pieloch
Yareth Flores Reyes
Grade 4
Avery Moore
Shane Klotz
Chasz Racz
Isabella Cuciti
Sydney Wolf
Leo Grisham
Michael McGarigle
Anola Dyson
Grade 5
Samantha Skwarek
Stephen Stull
Jayden Weatherly
Anjali Parikh
Katie Borgstrom
Kylie Wyer
Thomas Greco
Elizabeth Giordano
Mitchell Melton
Amanda Serementa
Anna Nicosia
Chioma Ozio
Grade 6
Grace MIchal
Yug Parikh
TJ Kokotajlo
Sanath Bhavankar
Sophia Lutzker
Eliana Souka
Ryan Caloiaro
Brenan Cordwell
Riya Manchanda
Ava Chianese
Addie Yuaubison
February -Tolerance
Grade 3
Shay Oleary
Matthew Lutzker
Sofie Quinto
Jessica Colletti
Tyler Frantz
Cameron Jackson
Cameron Langley
Aiden Schmidt
Victoria Bucchere
Grade 4
Nolan Bondoc
Jenna Keck
Aisha Khan
Obi Oneyemelukwe
Keira Stieber
Sreeprada Tadimalla
Scarlett Lynch
Colin Brennan
Grade 5
Colin Guenther
Isabella Vilic
Lola robbins
Wyatt Hutchinson
Emerson Kekesi
Mea Ragnacci
Avery Barrett
Andrew Coltre
Chaze Zola
Allen Fields
Grade 6
Hayden Vecere
Gianna Zanoni
Sophie Deerberg
Izabella Tucciollo
Matthew Renninger
Eric Addiego
Alissa Derboben
Angelina Bartolini
Milo ITchmoney
Valeria Amaro
Jacob Leechong
In conclusion, all did a great job of showing politeness throughout the month of January. These students are setting an outstanding example for other students to follow. Congrats to all winners! Keep up the great work!!
We are the Mustangs! By Janine DiGerolamo
One of the best schools I know is MTES,
They work students hard to do their very best,
If you want your learning abilities to expand,
Mr. Kershner, the staff, and teachers will be there if you just need a hand.
We are the Mustangs and proud of our name,
We are the Mustangs and proudly proclaim,
MTES is one of the best,
We put our students up to the test!
Places to Visit in Columbus - By Leo Grisham
Columbus Places to Visit
Kinkora Trail
Goes through Mansfield and Springfield
This is one of the good places to visit. And I have 3 good reasons!
It is a good way to exercise and it's much better than going on your TREADMILL!!! Plus It is over 2 miles. Last time I walked on it, I walked OVER 7500 steps . And there are Picnic tables so you can eat with family!!!!!
Well HERE’S something cool...Cars? NO! Nature? YES! There are no cars to bother you! You can ride your bike and see farms!!!! Thats nice!!!!!! Right???
There are cool logs and trees to climb on. When I went on it, I saw many trees and one cut down! I even kept a cool stick! And there are also a variety of animals to see, like birds!
We are happy that they put the Kinkora Trail here!!! Click on the link below:
NYC a great place to visit - By Samantha Colletti
A wonderful place to go this spring break is New York City. It has many things to do including dining, entertainment, stores, and Central Park. Besides all that, you might sneak a peek at a FAMOUS PERSON!! If you go, you can visit the Statue of Liberty, many museums, The Central Park Zoo, Chinatown, Broadway, Rockefeller Center, Times Square, Radio City Music Hall, and much more! New York City is a fun and family-friendly location and it can make your day awesome.
Box Top Winners - By Scarlett Lynch
So many great accomplishments have been achieved here at Mansfield Township Elementary School, it’s hard to keep count! Well, let’s see….. We have the staff of the year, our PARCC Awards, we even have our Kids of Character. That seems like a lot, so let’s just focus on one: Our Box Tops Winners!
Every year at both JHES and MTES, there is a contest to see which class can get the most Box Tops for each grade. This year the winners were Mrs. Brown/Lutz’s class, Mrs. Winter’s class, and Mrs. Dolci’s class.
I believe 4W would like to thank Kayla Stull. She brought in more Box Tops than the rest of the class put together! Every day, Kayla brought in practically a whole giant bag of Box Tops. Who else would be able to do that?
There are Civil war heroes, honored presidents, and remembered people, but there are no Box Top heroes! Let’s make one today.
Of course, there were other great heroes! Even some of the teachers are Box Top hero's. Next year, bring in many Box Tops and you may get your very own Box Tops plaque! Here’s one for everyone...
Every Box Top donated earns money for our school. I’m looking forward to seeing who wins next year's’ Box Top winners!
Poems - By Gabriella McKeon
Wonderful Colors
Red is the color of the love,
Orange is the color of leaves falling,
Yellow is the color of the sun delicately rising,
Green is the color of grass shooting up from underneath the ground,
Blue is the color of the gorgeous sky,
Purple is the color of joy,
and Pink is the color of a falling sunset on the beach.
The Beach
The sunset falls at the horizon,
The pink sand crunches in your toes,
The blue sea crashes,
Surfers surf the waves,
And the ocean life lives happily in their marine habitat.
SPRING Acrostic Poem - By Jessica Colletti
S- Sweet
P- Pretty
R- Rainbows
I- Irises
N- Nice Weather
G- GrassLEPRECHAUN - By Jessica Colletti
L- Lucky
E- Excellent
P- Pot of gold
R- Rainbow
E- Exciting
C- Clover
H- Happy
A- Amazing
U- Unbelievable
N- Naughty
Shriya Reddy gets Perfect Score on PARCC ~ By Nicholas Moran
Imagine getting 100% on a test. Some may say, "Oh it was so simple!" or "Easy peasy lemon squeezy!" But is it? A few weeks ago, I interviewed Shriya Reddy on getting 100% on the PARCC testing on fifth grade English Language Arts!!!
Shriya says she was super excited that she got 100%, especially because she get a letter from the superintendent. She says that she was jumping around and very, very excited. She called her mom, and explained the amazing news. She was extremely proud of herself. “I don’t really know how to describe it. It was just so amazing. I got the letter from the superintendent, and I was jumping around. I was just so, so excited,” said Shriya Reddy, remembering the letter.
She also shares she was amazed when she found out that she was the only one in the grade to get 100% on the English Language Arts. She said she was also happy that all of her classmates had done well, at least from what she had heard. She was proud of everyone else.
When asked about what she did to practice, Shriya gave no hesitation, and threw me a list. She said that she practiced a lot, especially in class when worksheets were given out. She studied, and worked hard to reach a high score. She says that she also did some practice tests, and tried to go over all of her material. “I was very confident when she took the test,” she said. She said she practiced very hard, and would still have been proud of herself if she had gotten a lower score. Shriya says that her hard work truly paid off in the end.
Recognition - By Gabriella McKeon
Here at our wonderful schools, Mansfield Township School District there are some teachers I want to recognize:
Teacher of the Year
Mrs. Lisa Dolci - MTES
Mrs. Megan Grosse - JHES
Education Service Provider of the Year
Mrs. Amy Vigorito - MTES
Mrs. Janet Strusz- JHES
Upcoming Events - By William Kearns
March
12-Spring forward-Set clocks ahead!
15-Home and School Public Meeting, MTES Library
17-5th and 6th Grade Performing Arts Show
24-Preschool and Kindergarten fun night
31-Blingo Bingo
17-Scholastic Book Fair "Blast Off!" @ MTES
April
8-Sprint into Spring
Student Interviews - By Katie Graff & Lizzy Giordano
Interviewing: Aubrey Platt
Grade 5 Student
Question 1: Why did you start Gymnastics?
Reply: To stay conditioned with soccer.
Question 2: What is your favorite thing about being a gymnast?
Reply: I can do stunts (like doing a bounder).
Question 3: What inspired you to do acrobatics?
Reply: Just like Gymnastics, to stay conditioned with soccer.
Question 4: What is your favorite thing about soccer?
Reply: Staying in action with friends.
Question 5: What is your favorite sport to play?
Reply: My favorite sport is Soccer.
Question 6: What did you do to be good at soccer?
Reply: Listen to my coach and play along.
Question 7: What inspired you to do these sports?
Reply: To just have fun.
Question 8: What do you dislike about any sport you play?
Reply: I don’t like some of the drills.
Question 9: Do you have anyone you would like to shoutout to?
Reply: Aaliya (Zimmer, Fifth Grade) and Gianna (Omiatek, Fifth Grade).
Question 10: Do you plan on joining another sport you haven’t already played?
Reply: Yes, softball.Student Interview-By Natalya Boyd
I interviewed Sophia Marcus and Anola Dyson, and they have something to share. “Don’t say pen, it's now a bad word if you do knock on wood!” they said to me. In
their classroom Mrs. Winters read a book called Frindle, by Andrew Clements. It’s all about a 6th grade boy, who invents a new word for pen, "Frindle", and his teacher, Mrs. Granger, wasn’t happy about this new word. Now Mrs. Winters class calls a pen a frindle, they took an oath to never say pen again (in the book they also took an oath). I recommend the book Frindle to anyone, you could get it from the school library or even your classroom! I bet if you read it then you'll see what we’re talking about. Remember, make sure to read Frindle and don’t say pen!
Sports - By Avery Barrett
Sports are loved by many people all around the world. They are a passion or just an entertaining option to do at home. Mansfield holds many great sports teams like softball, baseball, basketball, soccer and much more. These sports are being played by many in our schools. It gets kids moving and gets their bodies thriving! Do you admire sports? There are so many great things to sports like making new friends, exercising, and most importantly, having fun! I encourage everyone to play sports and here's why.
First, sports builds self-esteem. It gets you to have more confidence in yourself, and you learn to respect yourself. You can let anything in your head float away.You can just let your bubble burst and do it!
Secondly, playing sports helps you develop teamwork and leadership skills. You are encouraged to work with a team to earn points whether it's by throwing a ball in a bucket or using a bat to hit the ball high in the sky! Sometimes, you have to take care of things yourself and shoot for the sky. Its called leadership or as I like to say, where you take over. Well, not necessarily.
Furthermore, it's a natural stress reliever. You play hard as well as being focused on your job on the team and all you have to worry about is earning the points to win. You’ll know when a sport comes naturally because you’ll do it without hesitation. It may take a while to learn the rules though.
In brief, playing sports here in Mansfield is a marvelous idea. There are many choices to make! I encourage you to play. Just do it. Game on!
Mr. Kershner ~ By Jessica Colletti and Scarlett Lynch
Have you ever wondered how Mr. Kershner got to be principal at MTES? We asked him some questions to find out how.
To start our interview, let’s see how he likes working at MTES. When we asked him, he said,”I enjoy watching the teachers teach and students learn.”
I bet you’re wondering why this is his favorite part of MTES. Is it because he likes taking care of his students? Is it because he is secretly a spy posing as a principal? I’ll tell you first hand that it is not the second question. He said, “I like watching the students interact with each other and watching the teachers teach them and prepare them for the next grade.”
Well, how did he even become principal? In the words of the book “Mr.Klutz Is Nuts”, “Maybe he kidnapped our real principal and is pretending to be principal. Stuff like that happens all the time.” In this case, that makes absolutely NO sense!
This is what he said,”I was originally a teacher for 8 years and I decided to go back to college to get my degree to be a principal. Anyway, I went back to Rowan University and I got my degree.”
Still, we were curious, what did he do after he became principal? Did he just automatically get a job at MTES? Let’s find out. He said,”After I graduated I was vice principal in Mantua, NJ for 2 years.”
Aren’t you still curious about how he became principal of MTES? We were, too! Now let’s see what he said. Our beloved principal explained,”I looked on a website to see if there were any openings to be principal because that was my goal. So I took a lot of interviews to get the job here. I have been working here for 9 years.”
Lastly, just for fun, we asked him if he ever fired anyone. He said, "No, he didn’t because MTES has such a wonderful staff!"
Well, that’s how Mr.Kershner became principal. Look at how loved he is now! That is the principal story of our beloved Mr. Kershner!
MTES Teacher of the Year Interview - By Alana Bartolini
This year we congratulate the Teacher of the Year, Mrs. Dolci. She has done an outstanding job, and now she wants to continue to do so. “I work very hard, but I believe that other teachers had a fair chance of being teacher of the year,” she said. Her favorite thing about teaching is when kids learn, and when they get excited about it.
Currently, this is her eighteenth year teaching and she very much enjoys it. She grew up and was raised in Houston, Texas with determination to be a teacher. As a child she would always play school, and pretend like she was teaching students. She loved school dearly. She was influenced by many other great teachers and wanted to be the spitting image of them.
She said she wanted to be nothing else than what she is today. She grew older with her dream, and later it became reality. She decided she wanted to go to University Of Maryland, and get a master’s degree. In all, she had 6 years of college, and was ready to achieve her life goal. As she looked for a job, she found an opportunity in Burtonsville, Maryland and stayed there for two years. Later another opening was available in Columbus, New Jersey with a friendly family of students and staff. She took the opening and now spent sixteen years with the MTES family.
We thank her for her work, and wish she would carry it on, as we all know she would.
What better way to read...
Students in Mrs. Papero's second grade class enjoy using "Reading Boats" as part of their Daily 5 literacy activities. At the "Read to Self" station, Reading Boats help students to focus their minds and bodies on reading self-selected books from the classroom library. Students who choose to read in a Reading Boat have also noticed an improvement in their reading stamina. We think they're really fun to use, too!
Band News - By Natalya Boyd
Do you play an instrument for the band like I do? I play the clarinet for the band. Mrs. Manion (the conductor) teaches trombone, clarinet, flute, drums, bells, saxophone, and trumpet. It is not recommended to start playing an instrument now in the middle of the year, but you could rent or buy one to learn and play at home by NEMC.
There is a show coming up in March and the 4th and 5th graders will be there. The song the 4th graders know so far is Beethoven’s Ninth and Bugler Dream. All of these songs will be played for the concert. Mrs. Manion told me that the 4th graders will be playing two songs and the 5th graders will be playing four songs.
Parents and students are welcome to come see the show. I hope you can make it to our show and try to learn an instrument!
Fun Stuff - By Nicholas Moran
If you are to sneeze too hard, you have a possibility of fracturing a rib.
Cats have 32 muscles in each ear.
Strawberries have more Vitamin C than oranges.
The most expensive thing ever built was the Space Shuttle Atlantis at $196,000,000,000
Mountain lions can whistle.
Gorillas burp when they are happy.
A waterfall located in Hawaii goes up instead of going down.
There are more plastic Flamingos than real Flamingos in the USA.
- Twelve or more rocks have landed on Earth from space.
10 Fun Facts About Space - By Ryan Horn
Did you know that the first living thing in space was a dog?
Unlike the other planets, Uranus is on it’s side, not upright.
All of the universe is completely silent.
One day on Venus is longer than one year on Earth!
1.3 million Earths can fit inside the sun. It’s that big!
The furthest man-made spacecraft from the Earth is Voyager 1, which is 11.7 billion miles away!
Venus and Mercury are the only 2 planets that don’t have moons.
Jupiter has 67 known moons!
Saturn is so light that if you put it in a giant tub of water, it would float!
Finally, there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on all of Earth’s beaches; about 7 quintillion, 5 hundred quadrillion grains. Wow...just wow!
More Fun Facts - By William Kearn
10 Fun Facts
1.
A U.S. dollar bill can be folded in the same spot about 4,000 times before it tears.
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/explore/adventure_pass/weird-but-true/money/#WBT1600x900157.png
2.
The most expensive item ever sold on eBay was a $168 million yacht.
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/explore/adventure_pass/weird-but-true/money/#WBT1600x900118.png
3.
It gets so cold in Siberia that your breath can turn to ice in midair.
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/explore/adventure_pass/weird-but-true/world/#WBT1600x900281.png
4.
If you fell into a black hole you’d stretch out like spaghetti.
5.
Some of the first soles on Nike shoes were made by pouring rubber into a waffle iron.
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/explore/adventure_pass/weird-but-true/inventions/#WBT2_152.png
6.
Oxford university was built before the Aztec Empire.
http://www.aztec-history.com/aztec-empire.html
https://www.ox.ac.uk/about/organisation/history?wssl=1
7.
Robert E. Lee, the famous civil war general, was buried in his stocking feet because his coffin was too small. Oh Say Can You See page 248
8.
Black horse, our town Columbus, was originally called Encroaching Corners after a land of dispute. It was renamed Black Horse after a tavern. When the tavern named itself the Columbus Inn the town renamed itself Colombus along with it.
Washington’s Crossing, p. 420
9.
A flock of crows is called a Murder.
http://crow.bz/main/murder.htm
10.
The hoops originally used for basketball were peach baskets.
http://hooptactics.com/Basketball_Basics_HistoryLuck 'O the First Graders!
Miss Feeley's first graders at JHES are learning about the upcoming holiday, Saint Patrick's Day. Students got into the festive spirit by identifying some of the treasures in their lives that are as precious as a leprechaun's pot of gold!
Current Events - By Alana Bartolini
The article, “Afghan Boy Directs Traffic on Dangerous Mountain Pass to Support His Family” tells a heartwarming yet heart-sinking story, about an 11 year old boy who brings money towards his home.
Sedaqat spends the entire day out in the cold, working as a volunteer traffic warden on a dangerous mountain pass and accepts tips from grateful drivers. On a good day he’ll make a profit equivalent of $4, which he will use to support his family. He would rather go to school, but as the oldest son, he has to support the family when his father, a brickmaker, developed persistent stomach pains. Afghanistan bans children younger than 14 from working, but the laws are poorly enforced.
I think it’s terrible what this boy has to go through everyday for the good of his family, and can’t attend school like he wants.
Mansfield Township School District
Email: tmoutis@mansfieldschool.com
Website: mansfieldschool.com
Location: 200 Mansfield Road East, NJ, United States
Phone: 609-298-2037
Facebook: facebook.com/MansfieldSchoolDistrict
Twitter: @MTES_JHES