Cranston Girl Scouts storm Capitol Hill

Cranston Herald

May 20, 2010

All text and photos by: Jennifer Cowart

MOVING ON UP: Girl Scouts from every troop in Cranston were invited to attend the State House Day field trip on April 23. Over 100 girls were in attendance that day, many of whom came with their families.

On April 23, the Cranston Girl Scouts had the opportunity to tour the Rhode Island State House in Providence. Carol Chin and Nancy Gilheeney organized State House Day as a citywide scouting event.

Almost 200 scouts, leaders, parents and siblings arrived at the state’s capital bright and early that Friday morning. After going through security, they were split into three groups for tours of the building.

“It was extremely successful. It was actually the largest turnout of any of the program events we ran this year,” said Chin.

The tour guides took the girls through every area of the State House, including the Senate and House of Representatives. Along the way, they learned about the political process and also the history of the building itself.

“The paintings [by Gilbert Stuart] were a big hit with the kids, the ones where the eyes and the feet seem to follow you around the room,” said Troop 156 Brownie Leader, Barbara Valletta.

She saw a lot of enthusiasm from the group, even before they stepped inside the building.

“My girls were really looking forward to the field trip before we got there. None of them had been to the State House before and we were working on our ‘Proud to be a Citizen’ badge,” Valletta said.

After the tours, the Girl Scouts were treated to a pizza luncheon, courtesy of Representative Nicholas Mattiello, House Majority Leader.

Following lunch, a group photo was taken on the steps of the State House and the girls continued down to the memorial Garden of Heroes, which is located on the State House grounds. There, a memorial stone lists the names of all of the men and women of Rhode Island who have given their lives in the name of service to our country, since Sept. 11, 2001.

There are more than 20 names listed on the memorial there, including Marine Corps L/CPL Holly Charette and Coast Guard PS3 Ron A. Gill Jr., both of Cranston. Representatives from the Cranston Girl Scouts placed red, white and blue flowers on the memorial stone in honor of the fallen heroes.

Reading Week a slam dunk at Rhodes

May 13, 2010
Cranston Herald
All text and photos by Jennifer Cowart

TEAM CAPTAINS: Coaches Jackie Cromer and Mel Moore read aloud to the students at Rhodes Elementary School during their One on One Basketball presentation.

Edward S. Rhodes Elementary School celebrated their Reading Week success recently, with an assembly presented by two players from One on One Basketball, an organization that usually teaches basketball to kids.


This time they came to Rhodes with a special message to pass along.

“I didn’t get this good at basketball without reading,” said instructor Jackie Cromer, known to the students simply as “Coach Jackie.”

Principal Kenneth Blackman explained to the students that the players were there as a reward for the students’ dedication to reading. Graphs line the hallways of Rhodes, to demonstrate the number of minutes each classroom read.

“We’ve done lots of reading this week for our Slam Dunk a Good Book theme,” he said. “We did a little reading, now we’ll do a little basketball.”

The students paid close attention as Cromer and Rhode Island Hawks coach Ramel Moore, known as “Mel,” came to center stage with basketballs in hand, looking ready to play.

“Reading gives you knowledge,” Moore said. “If you want to learn about something, you need to read about it.”

Moore and Cromer alternated speaking to the students about their early love of reading and how it influenced their basketball careers later on.

“The first book I ever read was a children’s story book,” Moore told the students, giving his basketball an occasional bounce as he spoke. “I used to love to read to my brother. We would imagine we were in the stories.”

Cromer was more of a mystery lover, and shared how her love of mysteries turned into a love of basketball.

“I was a fun girl. I liked adventure,” Cromer said. “When I was reading, I could be anything: a princess in a tower, or a basketball player. My teacher introduced me to Sherlock Holmes and Nancy Drew, and then I started reading about basketball and all of the girl basketball players.”

To prove the point that knowledge is power, Cromer and Moore read the intermediate students a “DK Eyewitness Book” appropriately titled, “Basketball.” They read facts and figures to the students about the person who invented the game of basketball in 1891 and how it was first played.

The students were at full attention, so that they could answer questions for prizes at the end.

When the primary students arrived for their assembly, Moore read “Sheryl Swoopes Shoots Hoops,” one of Cromer’s favorite basketball stories about a WNBA star and player for the Houston Comets. The story shows Swoopes in a variety of basketball moves on each page, and Cromer acted out each move as Moore read aloud to the students.

After the story in each assembly – one for upperclassmen and another for the younger students – ended, Moore and Cromer led the students in a couple of basketball skill games and showed off their own talents.

Moore and Cromer didn’t leave without reinforcing the real reason why they were there.

“We’re here to encourage you to read,” Moore said.

“There’s a book you’re going to fall in love with,” Cromer added. “You just have to go to the library and find it.”

To learn more about One on One Basketball, visit their Web site at www.1on1basketball.com.

Books come alive at Woodridge

May 6, 2010
Cranston Herald
Text and photos by: Jen Cowart

Second-graders Grant Clayton and Madison Berman came to school as their favorite characters, The JOker and Miss Viola Swamp.

     The staff and students at Woodridge Elementary School took the opportunity to combine their School Spirit Week with Reading Week last month. Reading specialist Karen Marocco planned the week so that each day featured a new set of activities. As part of the week's events, Marocco also scheduled a variety of guest readers reading to all of the classrooms.

     On Monday, the students and teachers came dressed in their favorite team jerseys for Sports Day. Tuesday brought characters to life from the children's favorite books. Fancy Nancy, the Wimpy Kid and his diary, and many more characters could be seen roaming the hallways and filling the classrooms as the students showed off their costumes and shared who their favorite characters were.

Kindergartener Max Marchetti shows off his favorite book, "ABC" by author Dr. Seuss.

     As the week progressed, the focus turned to colors and students were asked to come to school dressed in ocean colors to celebrate the Reading Week theme:  Catch the waves of Literacy.

     On Thursday, the students were asked to sport T-shirts they'd designed themselves advertising their favorite books, and Friday was a beach da as the studetns and staff caught the waves of literacy for one last day.

Rob Rainville takes time out from his campaign for Attorney General to read to students. The students posing with Rainville are wearing the T-shirts they designed, which advertise their favorite books.

Eden Park gives their share

May 6, 2010
Cranston Herald
Text by: Jen Cowart

The student council at Eden Park Elementary School ran a healthy competition between all of the classes to see who could bring in the most peanut butter for the Washington Trust Company's PB Express Peanut Butter Bank drive. In total, the school collected 876 jars of peanut butter, with a tie between two classes: the second-graders in Kim Devany's class tied with the third-graders in Anne Stringfellow's class, who are pictured above. Photo by: Jen Cowart

Kim Devany's second-grade class tied with Stringfellow's class for bringing in the most peanut butter in the school. The entire school brought in almost 900 jars of peanut butter for the need. Photo by: Meri Kennedy

Reading Week takes center stage at Stone Hill School

May 6, 2010
Cranston Herald
All text and photographs by: Jen Cowart

Kindergarten students Sophia Crudale and Jay Mulmute show off their classroom door, decorated as the book cover from "The Tiny Seed," by Eric Carle.

Stone Hill Elementary School celebrated Reading Week in a big way last month. It was an undertaking that involved the entire school community including students, teachers and even principal Norma Cole.


“We had a great week, even better than I could’ve even imagined,” said Cole, who is finishing up her first year at Stone Hill Elementary, but has been a longtime principal in Cranston.

At Stone Hill, Reading Week coincided with IOWA testing, which is a standardized test that students take over a period of two weeks.

“This has helped them get through IOWA testing,” said Cole. “The kids were really well behaved.”

Tyler Coutu, a sixth-grader who was dressed as Dustin Pedroia for Character Day, said participation from the administration was one of the reasons the students were so engaged in the activities.

“Every day at the end of the day, there was a Reading Jeopardy game over the loud speaker. Mrs. Cole would ask a question about a different reading topic and the class to buzz down the answer [to the main office] first, would get a point,” Coutu explained.

Cole said that classrooms would submit a question each day to be used in the game. Classrooms were also in a friendly reading competition to see whose class could read the most minutes.

“The reading must be done at home and the minutes must be brought in the next day, signed, or else they don’t count,” she said.

But when there was a DEAR announcement, students followed orders to Drop Everything and Read.

Touring the school, visitors could see the school wide effort to bring books to life. Classes decorated their doors with murals depicting the cover of their favorite book. Kindergarten chose “The Tiny Seed,” for example, while over in another classroom their door was decorated with the cover of “My Father’s Dragon.”

Fourth-grader Ryan Maguire, dressed as Harry Potter and sporting a lightening bolt on his forehead, described another fun activity that students were able to partake in, called Creative Captions.

Medha Reddy, Jamie Pacheco and Sarah Kilbane, all third-graders at Stone Hill, visit the school's Creative Captions bulletin board while they come up with their own creative captions for the contest.

For that activity, a calendar was placed on the bulletin board in the foyer of the school. On each page was a cartoon that did not contain words. The students were given the opportunity throughout the day to put their own words to the pictures. Winning captions were chosen from those that entered.

Later in the week, an assembly welcomed “The Ned Show,” which showed yo-yo tricks to the students while discussing how to succeed in school.

The week finished off with Beach Day on Friday, and another school-wide assembly, as a finale to celebrate the school’s participation in Reading Week. Books were given out to winners of the various contests.

“This was a group effort,” Cole said. “The students have done a great job and the teachers put their hearts and minds into this so that the students could have a good time.”