Hoverboards Toys or Firestarters?

Transcription

1 Volume 5, Issue 3, February 2016 Hoverboards Toys or Firestarters? In this issue: The most talked about toy is now exploding. Learn about Bullying! Love Your Pets!! Make Snowflakes!!! Be Musical!!!! Superbowl Info!!!!! by Valerie Finke The most talked about toy, the hoverboard, is exploding and causing multiple injuries. What is a hoverboard? A hoverboard is basically a mini Segway without a handlebar. This toy is used for fun transportation, you lean forward and it goes forward, you lean back and it goes back, it can even make a 360 degree turn! Their are multiple colors and sizes that range from a 6.5 inch, 8 inch, and even the 10 inch! As of right now the colors you can get are gold, blue, white, and green. They can hold up to 220 pounds. The reason the hoverboards are exploding is because of overheating of the battery. The culprits behind these exploding machines are said to be Chinese factories. The factories may be making cheap hoverboards with bad quality batteries. Kids were letting their hoverboards charge too much at night, resulting in the overheating of a bad quality battery. If you want to get a safe hover-board the most popular online stores are Hovertrax, Ninebot, IO Hawk, and Amazon. To help better prevent explosions you can make sure to stop charging once the hoverboard battery is at a hundred percent. I got information from cnet.com and bestelectrichoverboard.com

2 OFF THE BENCH Meet the 7th Grade Girl s Volleyball Coach by Casey Gallagher The Westhampton Beach 7th grade girls volleyball team is doing great this season, thanks to coach Ms. Jackie Reed. Ms. Reed is the 7th grade volleyball coach, as well as the coach for the boys varsity and middle school volleyball teams and the 7th and 8th grade girls softball teams. Ms. Reed began her coaching career while still in college at James Madison, where she coached a travel team for 13 year old girls. Ms. Reed says that she enjoys coaching because she loves sharing her passion for volleyball and other sports with children. She states, I want to show them great experiences and teach them about their work ethic and teamwork. According to Ms. Reed, she has had many coaches over the years that she still keeps in touch with today. Those coaches helped to mold her into the person she is today and she desperately wants to do the same for someone else. Jackie Reed teaches math at Westhampton Beach High School. She says that she loves coaching and teaching because it allows me to be able to pass on my knowledge to someone else and it makes me a better player and student because I am constantly learning different things and ways to break them down. Ms. Reed is a pisces, born March 16th. She has an older brother and no pets. Her hobbies include baking, working on her house, and going on vacation. She attended James Madison University and Canisius College. She played volleyball as a setter. Her role model is her mom. Her bucket list includes traveling to Egypt to see the pyramids, going on a South African Safari, traveling to Australia and seeing kangaroos, bungee jumping, and learning how to surf. Jackie Reed s favorite color is blue, her favorite animal is a baby polar bear, and her favorite subject is math. Elf and Dumb and Dumber are her favorite movies. She prefers any place that is warm as her favorite vacation spot and St. Patrick s Day as her favorite national holiday. Her favorite shows are Saved by the Bell and Nashville. Ms. Reed s favorite food is pizza and candy is sour patch watermelon.

3 by Grace McGowan and Valerie Finke Why Cause Pain??? Have you ever witnessed or experienced bullying? Bullying can leave someone broken. You should not judge people because of rumors or the way someone looks or acts, you never know what they are going through. Bullying can happen so quickly that you do not have time to do anything. What would you do in that situation? Be a bystander? the defender?, or even the bully? Many people have gone through these situations, even us, and guess what it is a horrible thing to go through. Bullying is like a disease, it gets worse and worse if you don't stop it. Each day over 160,000 kids stay home from school to avoid being bullied. There are many types of bullying including physical, verbal, indirect, social, and cyber bullying. Would you want to be the cause of someone staying home or even harming themselves? Some people even commit suicide because of bullying. Kids who are bullied normally have a feeling that they are different, powerless, unpopular, alone. The victims feel that the bully has more power over them. I know someone who has been a victim of social and cyber bullying. The bully would send mean messages, and block them when they did nothing wrong. The bully would try to make people turn on her and say things that are not true. What is the main factor of bullying? The bully is usually jealous. Don't let people get to you. You be you and don't let bullying change your personality. Information from: by Carter Cline Pets Should Be Loved I usually don t like bad news but this is way too important to ignore. About 7.6 million companion animals enter animal shelters nationwide every year! I think that s amazing, in a terrible way of course. I ve always loved animals, so I could never imagine that there would be even 10 pets entering shelters each day! When I saw this information, I immediately thought it would be a great article, but then I just imagined my dog gone... I d like you to do that now if you have a pet that you love Scratch that because if you do have a pet, then you should love it. Of those 7.6 million pets abandoned, approximately 3.9 million are dogs and 3.4 million are cats. Each year, approximately 2.7 million animals are killed (1.2 million dogs and 1.4 million cats. Owning a pet is a large responsibility and if you want one, it is important to take care of it. Some of the animals in shelters are there because of people who think they can handle a pet, but can t. If you have seen adorable pictures and your friends have pets too that doesn t mean you can handle it. If your schedule is way too busy, getting a pet might not be the best idea. This may have started as a friendly article, but now it s a serious warning to you all!!!

4 Get Artsy with Maddie Learn to Make Paper Snowflakes by Madeleine Donahue You will need colored paper of your choice for this activity. 1.) Fold the paper upwards into a triangle 2.) Then fold one corner a little more to the side than usual 3.) Flip the paper over and do the same thing 4.) Fold the piece of paper together like it is symmetrical 5.) Then you can cut out any design that you would like 6.) The open up your paper carefully and there is your paper snowflake Musical Students Shine at HMEA by Hannah Parsons I got selected to perform in an honors music group called HMEA. HMEA stands for Hamptons Music Educators Association. Throughout the Hamptons and the East End, only the best instrumentalists, vocalists, string players, and drummers get selected to perform at a special concert. We went to three five hour rehearsals, and then we had the concert. The concert was so much fun! Everyone in the audience loved the performance and the performers had an amazing time. There was never a dull moment. The band that I was in played four different songs. They were From Sea to Shining Sea, River Park Holiday, Hymn for Band, and Joyance. During the first rehearsal, we were also handed a song where the conductor said that if we learned it well, we could play it in the concert as a little bonus for the audience. It was called Cyclone. The HMEA concert was a great experience for all who participated.

5 Accepting Short Film Submissions from Students in Grades 6 through 12 Now until March 4, 2016 For more information go to: Proceeds from the event support One Laptop Per Child Friday, April 15, 2016 at 7:30pm Westhampton Beach High School District Auditorium

6 Superbowl 50 by Alex Castro Cruz and Spencer Bentley Now that the Super Bowl is over, were your predictions as good as ours? Held in Santa Clara, CA at Levi s Stadium on 2/7/16, this historic event has proven to be one of the biggest games in the 50 years since the first Super Bowl held on 1/15/1967. The Super Bowl had been created to merge the NFL and the AFL into one game, given the name of Super Bowl after AFL creator Lamar Hunt saw a group of kids playing with a toy named Super Bowl. As for the popularity of college bowl games back then, the name became this once in every year sporting event. The original teams in Super Bowl, which footage of it had been lost for years, were the NFL s Green Bay Packers and the AFL s Kansas City Chiefs, resulting in a win to the Green Bay Packers, making it the 1st official Super Bowl. Since then, teams from both the NFL and AFL had done everything in their power to win the Super Bowl. The last 2 remaining teams which were the Denver Broncos and the Carolina Panthers faced each other to see who would take home the trophy. To reach this far in the tournament, the Broncos defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New England Patriots and the Panthers defeated the Green Bay Packers and the Arizona Cardinals all in the Divisional Playoffs and A and N Conference Championship. We predicted the Patriots to win the Super Bowl. Who did you predict? Contributors to this issue: Feature Writers: Valerie Finke, Grace McGowan, Carter Cline, Casey Gallagher, Madeleine Donahue, Hannah Parsons, Alex Castro Cruz, and Spencer Bentley Production Editor: Hannah Parsons Managing Editor: Casey Gallagher Executive Editor: Alexis Valerius Newsletter Supervisors: Ms. Perez and Mr. Holt Publisher: Sydney Sheren Do you want to see your name in this box? Join The Newsletter Association at any time during the year. Go to the Middle School Library for more information.