What s NeW Park VieW?

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1 What s NeW Park VieW? Park View Student Newspaper December 2017 Holiday Door Decoration Contest Draws Near By Blue Smith Mrs. Fryburg and Ms. Corpolongo help hom- With the holidays fast approaching, Park View has announced the onset of the annual holiday door decorating contest. The door decoration contest is about decorating your homeroom door with Christmas themed decorations. Each homeroom is in the planning stages and the actual door decorating and judging happens on the day before the holiday vacation. Each homeroom must work as a team. The students use advisory as a time to plan the theme and divide up the work. The morning of the contest, each homeroom must work frantically to assemble their work for presentation. Many people are trying to win, so many people are participating. People have been assigned various tasks to help with the door decoration contest. For example, people will glue, cut or make things. The door decoration contest becomes intense because of the large number of tasks to be accomplished. Choosing a theme is one of the most important aspects of presenting an award winning door. Last year, Mr. Shippee s homeroom won employing a carnival game that caught the interest of the judges. Other notable themes in past years were Star Wars by Mr. Valletta s homeroom and Home Alone by Ms. Lefebvre. The door decoration contest started in 2013 and has grown into a huge event. Principal Crudale invites a number of dignitaries like Mayor Fung and Superintendent Notta-Masse each year to score the doors. The scoring is based on a rubric and then the eroom 208 construct the Polar Express last scores are held in secret until Ms. Hawkins presents a music video year. of all of the doors at the annual holiday assembly in the afternoon. Only then will the school learn of the top point scorers. The teachers in charge of the winning door are awarded a plaque to keep until the following year.

2 Park View Thanksgiving Food Drive Continues By Gabriella Ponte During this time of year everyone reflects on what they re thankful for. It s also a time to give to others who are in need. In that spirit, Park View holds an annual Thanksgiving food drive. Students and faculty bring in non perishable food items and money to help provide families with the food items they need for a joyful Thanksgiving dinner. The tradition began at Park View over 20 years ago. Mrs. Salvatore, who organized this year s annual food drive, said that Park View donated enough for 30 baskets and many Faculty and staff members hold up some Ramen Noodles after they sorted the hundreds of items other items were donated to food pan- donated by the students. try. Collections began the week after the Park View 5K and continued until the week of Thanksgiving. The grand total came in at 4420 food items and $ donated. The homeroom who donated the most won a pizza party. Homeroom 119 won with a total of 1339 items. The most popular food item brought in was Ramen Noodles. While not everyone eats Ramen Noodles for Thanksgiving, they are delicious and there was plenty to go around. Mrs. Salvatore said that once all of the items were collected, faculty and staff members came in early in the morning during Thanksgiving week and sorted the food into baskets. One thing I have experienced about Park View since coming here in September is that this school is very involved in community. I could only believe that it started to help the families in our community so they could enjoy a Thanksgiving meal, Mrs.Salvatore explained. Many students donated to the drive. Jethro Vargas said, I donated a dollar. He also donated six cans the previous year. Another student, Chinasa Corbie said, I donated five cans and one dollar this year. She also explained that, I donated maybe three cans and one dollar the previous year. The Thanksgiving Food Drive was successful and all 30 baskets went directly to Park View families.

3 New Year s Resolutions Offer Excitement for New Year By Thomas Heaton After the new year many students choose a resolution to follow: studying, reading, and anything else we think is possible. Most teachers urge students to find make a resolution to follow for reasons we can all guess. The concept of new year s resolutions was most likely some random guy thinking that with a new year that he should improve something about his life, told his friends, until it became a widely accepted tradition. The appeal was pretty large because it allowed people to spend money or time on bettering themselves without it seeming like one was going through a crisis of the midlife variety or just making a rash decision. Most people break their new diets or workout plans after about two or three months, and go back to whatever they were doing a few months ago. This leads to stipulations, then discouragement, so in the long run the entire system is kind of a contradictory mess. Although, it doesn t seem to be a well-rounded and adequate way to encourage people, it has positive aspects, specifically discounts and new opportunities. One of the larger industries that offers discounts for New Years is gyms; you can get a deal on a year-long membership, classes and a bunch of other stuff we told ourselves we would use. Another discount is organic and healthy food, even though organic, or non-gmo foods don t have any real benefits, they have gouging prices. Most stores will have sales on bulk items and other weight-loss supplements, and foods. These industries make so much off of resolutions trying to be healthier that it could be their best time for earnings. In fact, the most common resolution is to exercise more, taking up a whopping 38% of all resolutions. The next few most popular resolutions are eat more healthily (32 percent), lose weight (31 percent), and try a new hobby (15 percent). The practice of New Year s resolutions has been around so long we don t even know when it started; it s estimated that the concept was conceived around when early humans built civilizations and had time to try to better themselves. The appeal of this concept then spread, and after that most people tried to better themselves when a new year came. The concept of bettering yourself for the new year soon became the topic of many jokes because of pop culture s comical inflation of what you should do or can do for new years. This led to the tradition losing its popularity, and now it s kind of a gray area. The concept does seem to be making a comeback though it ill soon probably going to hit another peak of popularity. Now, if you re still interested in a resolution, the newspaper staff of Park View urges you to pursue that. New Year s Resolutions Megan Buchanan: My New Year s resolution is to use my phone less. Kevin Cabral: To get more friends. Isaiah Coulanges: For this year, I am going to be more physically active and make high honor roll for the rest of the year so I can be in the NJHS.

4 The Natural Competitiveness of Kids By Ashley Santiago You may be competitive and that s normal, because it's natural. Today, many kids are very competitive when it comes to challenges, especially at Park View. Some people compete when it comes to staring contests, food eating contest or even kicking a can down the street. You see it all the time. Kids are especially competitive when it comes to sports such as basketball or swimming. Even when kids are just hanging out with their friends, they might try to see who can not blink the longest. After a while they start crying because they are so desperate to win. They want to beat their friends so badly they will go to painful extremes. Erika Rogers was having a staring contest after school. She was trying so hard not trying to blink. We all know that is relatable because we all know it's hard not to blink when it comes to staring contests because your eyes might feel like they are burning or you just want to close your eyes so badly. Erika, a seventh grade student on the Seven Wonders Team said, I like staring contests because it s Jacqueline Heaton and Thibodeau have a stare down in the second floor corridor. fun to see who can stare the longest. Leah, also a seventh grade student on the Seven Wonders team, had an experience when she did a food eating contest once on Christmas Day. She said, Once on Christmas Day, my cousin, uncle and I wanted to see who could eat the fastest. I actually won, but since I ate so fast, there was food all over my clothes.

5 Transitioning to Park View Just 6 months ago I was a 5th grader, the oldest grade at elementary school. Now I am 6th grader, the youngest class at Park View. I attended Chester W. Barrows during elementary school, and Park View is a whole new ballgame. I ve enjoyed being a Park View student for the 3 months I ve been here. All the nerves and questions I had going into Park View have slowly diminished over the first quarter. Now that we re in December, elementary school is in the rearview. This is just the second year of 6th grade being back in middle schools in Cranston since being removed in The return of 6th grade called for renovations of the basement floor; included in the renovations were the brand new bathrooms. The bathrooms on the G-Wing are filled with motion activated equipment including the sinks and stalls. With this Sixth grader, Jacob Joubert, washes his hands in the new G Wing Lav. By Charles Adams equipment, it keeps the bathroom clean and gets rid of the everyday struggle of looking through every stall to find a clean one. One of the things that every 5th grader fears about heading to middle school is the thought of never having recess again. Recess was a time to play kickball and have fun. We had 15 minutes each day which amounted to 1 hour and 15 minutes a week. At Park View, physical education meets twice a week for 55 minutes each class, which amounts to 1 hour and 50 minutes each week. Though PE was held twice a week at Barrows, it was much shorter than the time we have at Park View. Already we can see that losing recess isn t a big deal once you think about it, but we haven t even accounted for the extra time that you get after school. My elementary school started at 8:40 and let out at 2:55; the Park View school day starts at 8:05 and concludes at 2:20. While the amount of time spent in school is the same, most would agree that having more time after school is better than more time before school. Many people also fear not being able to open their locker or forgetting items in their locker. In elementary school, we would hang our belongings on hooks in the teacher s classroom. While opening lockers and remembering what you need for each class can sometimes be tricky, it only takes a few weeks until you start to do it almost automatically. While these lockers can be troublesome at times, your locker makes you feel like a part of the school belongs to you. When I was in 5th grade we had two teachers, one taught ELA and social studies, the other taught math and science. In a day at Park View you encounter 6 or 7 teachers, seeing 9 different teachers a week. Also, in Park View, classes usually last 55 minutes, elementary school kept you with two teachers for 6 hours. Having different teachers every 55 minutes allows a student to not have to have an entire school day ruined if something goes wrong. The transition to Park View has been easier than expected. 6th graders are the youngest in the school, but it s hard to tell. From the 3 month sample I ve had of Park View, I can understand why Park View is spoken of so highly. I went from being the oldest at school to the youngest, but I would never choose elementary school over Park View.

6 Christmas Memories of the Past By Austen Iacabbo-Sawyer The holidays are just around the corner! Parents and children are starting to decorate and get in the Christmas spirit. Christmas is a time for joy and cheer, but we all have those moments where things don t exactly go as planned. Ann Notarianni on the Seven Wonders is definitely ready for Christmas. She says that she loves to bake cookies. I decorate my tree, which is real, with ornaments and lights, she said. A funny memory I have is when I was in first grade and my mom took pictures of me when I had a broken collarbone and I was wearing a chef outfit because I wanted to be a chef. I decorate my living room and dining room. On my front lawn we have a wreath. My favorite Christmas memory is making gingerbread houses with my dad! On Christmas Eve, we set out the chocolate chip cookies and milk and then we watch Christmas movies. My mom, me, and my two sisters cook Christmas dinner. Ella Belsky on the Phoenix team is also ready for the holidays! My Christmas tradition is having sugar cookies and hot chocolate while decorating the tree and watching Christmas movies. A funny memory I have is when I put a mini santa hat on my cat. My family and I were putting up our Christmas decorations and we found a small Christmas hat so we didn t know what to do with it so we thought it would be really funny if we put it on our cat. My family and I decorate so much that you can t even see out mantle under all the decorations. As we were decorating, a snowman fell off because of all the decorations we put there. After it fell, my dog came and ate it. On Christmas Eve, my family does a yankee swap with all of my second cousins and second aunts and my favorite was when I was about 5 and my brother picked the biggest one and it turned out to be a jewelry maker and he literally threw it at me. Leah Mercier, of the Seven Wonders, is also excited for Christmas. She states, I love to spend time with my family and I love having fun and making memories with my family (including their dog). My family and I meet up at my grandma s house, eat dinner and open gifts around 8-8:30. My mom, me, and my grandma decorate our fake tree together. This is little Ann Notarianni still in the Christmas spirit with a broken collarbone. Me and my cousin got locked in my dog's cage and we couldn t get out! That same cousin that got stuck in my dog s cage with me walked downstairs early to see what was there before everyone woke up on Christmas morning. I love to spend time with my family, play games and eat. Me and my mom watch Christmas movies until around 11:00 at night. Me, my mom, and my uncle would cook dinner.

7 Cougars Off to a Hot Start By Lorenzo Flores This year s boy s basketball team opened the season winning their first three basketball games of the year. First, they opened their season on November 29th at Warwick Vets Junior High School. Park View won a tight thriller in overtime when Azmar Abdullah hit the game winning free throw with three seconds left. The team then went on to win their next two games, first defeating Bain Middle School by a score of and then Deering Middle School The boys basketball season has a slate of 12 regular season games that span the winter months and the regular season ends on January 25th. The full schedule can be accessed on Ripcoa.com. After a dismal season of 2-10 last year, Coach Burke looks to improve on that mark. After a 3-0 start to this season, Coach Burke is optimistic about the team s success. While Mr. Burke values winning a lot and feels like his team can do better than last year, he doesn t put winning above learning and improving. The players on the team this season include the 8th graders Rowan Hanley, Teddy Shackleford, Jack Neville, Vincent Yin, Arthur Peters, and Connor Chambers. The 7th graders are Armase Eduard, Azmar Abdullah, Lorenzo Flores, William Outar, Thomas Garnetto, and Daquan Foster.. The only 6th grader that made the team is Larry Yin. Girls also on the winning side The Park View Girls team is also doing very well. The girls are currently 3-1. After opening up their season with dominant wins over Warick Vets and Bain Junior High, the girls dropped a close one to Deering The girl s then rebounded with a convincing victory over Western Hills Middle School. Cougars Set up their defense.