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▲ Genelia KangErie School, second grade
▲ Ron CieslakWayne School, fifth grade
▲ Lucas McAllisterPerry School, second grade
▲ Rachael EdgarCorry Area Intermediate, fifth grade
▲ Alex DombrowskiWattsburg Area Elementary, fourth grade
▲ Laina FinazzoSaint Luke School, seventh grade
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Chapter 10: The RobynReport
The story so far: The neighbor-hood block party is over. Here aretwostoriesfromthisweeks’editionof The Robyn Report, detailingsome of the events.
Ready … Set … Spit!
By ROBYN ZIMMERMANRZ Publishing
Sarah McIntosh loves to spit.Yesterday, she was crowned
the seed-spitting champion oftheneighborhoodforthefourthyear in a row. She spit her seed19 feet, 4 inches, which is a newneighborhood record.
“I had a secret move thisyear,” Sarah said. “My sistertaught me this trick with mytongue. I pull my tongue backlike a spring before I spit. It re-ally helps the seed fly throughthe air.”
Sarah has been spitting wa-termelon seeds since she was3 years old. It all started whenshe ate her first piece of water-melon.
“It was a hot summer day,and we were eating watermel-oninourbackyard,”Sarahsays.“That’s when I bit into some-thing hard.”
Sarahaskedherparentswhatitwas,andtheytoldheritwasawatermelon seed.
“They told me to spit it out,so I did,” Sarah said. It was noordinaryspit,though.Whenshespit this seed, it flew across theyard. Sarah thought it was fun,so she kept spitting the seeds.She wanted to see just how farshe could make the seeds go. Ayear later, Sarah entered herfirstseed-spittingcontestatherfamily reunion. She took thirdplace in the kids’ division.
“Afterthat,IknewIwasbornto spit,” she says.
For winning, Sarah receivedtheneighborhoodseed-spittingtrophy and a huge watermelon,donated by Mr. Duncan. Afterthe contest, she shared it withthe entire neighborhood.
Sarah says four years as theneighborhoodchampionisgood
enough for her. Next year, shedoes not plan to compete in thecontest. Instead, she will be of-fering free seed-spitting work-shops for anyone interested.
She’s not going to give upseed-spittingaltogether,though.She will still compete in thecontest at the county fair, andone day, she hopes to qualifyfor the national contest.
“The national seed-spittingrecord for women is 39 feet,”Sarah says. “I’ve got a long wayto go, but I’ll do it. One day I’mgoing to be in the GuinnessBook of World Records.”
(Editor’s Note: The RobynReport would like to thankRoxanne Roberts for help withthis story. She convinced Sarahto do the interview. Sarah said
it didn’t take much convincing,though.Inherownwords,“Rox-anne makes the best chocolatechip cookies in the neighbor-hood.”)
Food Fight on Fisher Lane
By ROBYN ZIMMERMANRZ Publishing
Every day should start withspaghetti.
At least, that’s Marie Cortez’sphilosophy. She was responsi-blefortheopeningceremonyatyesterday’sneighborhoodblockparty. She wanted a uniqueway to get things started, so shebrought out buckets of cookedspaghetti noodles.
“No one was expecting it,”Mariesaid.“Ijuststartedthrow-ingthenoodlesoutatthecrowd.
At first everyone was shocked,but then they started laughingand quickly joined in, too.”
Marie said it took her twoweeks to cook enough noodlesfor the contest.
“I had bags and bags of noo-dles in my refrigerator,” shesays.“Myfamilywaseatingspa-ghettieverynight.”Everyoneatthe ceremony seemed to agreethat it was the perfect way tokick things off.
“Ihadsomuchfun,”BillyJor-dan said. “I never thought wewould have a food fight in frontof the library. This was the bestblock party ever.”
Melanie Michaels wasn’teven planning to attend theopening ceremony, but she’sglad she did.
“It’susuallyboring,”shesaid.“But this year was awesome. Ididn’t even mind getting spa-ghetti in my hair.”
It was definitely a hit. Manyof the neighbors have alreadynominated Marie to plan nextyear’s ceremony.
“If I do it next year, I’m goingto have to think of somethingthat no one will suspect,” shesays. “Maybe it will involvechocolatepudding.Ormaybeitwill be peas. I guess you’ll haveto wait and find out.”
(For more neighborhoodhappenings, go to www.robyn-reports.com.)
Provided byAmerican Press Institute
Copyright © 2006 Stacy Tornio
Robyn reports: The nutty neighborhood block party
Extra! Extra! Read all about it!Follow each new chapter as it unravels in our serial story, while enjoying student responses and artwork.
“Bullying is defined as re-peated, aggressive behavior byone person or a group of peopletowardsanotherpersonorgroup.Bullying is a problem in the ma-jority of schools. Even if you’renot seeing it, it’s happening. Andit needs to be stopped.
To understand why we needto stop bullying, we must firstunderstand why we should stopit at all.
Bullying is hurtful. It causespeople to feel badly about them-selves.Bullyingcanturnahappy,confident, outgoing person intosomeone who is shy, upset andunsure. It can alter someone’sself-esteem for the worse. Nega-tive effects like this can last avery long time and even be per-manent.
Bullying is so strong that itcan even cause someone to hurt
themselvesotherothers.Seventy-five percent of school shootingsare done by victims of bullying.Bullyingcanalsoleadtosuicide.
Some people think that bully-ing is a normal part of life anddoesn’t need to be dealt with.This is wrong. Putting someonedown for someone’s own self-ish benefit is never OK, and it isespecially not normal. Bullyingshould be stopped entirely, andI believe this goal is attainable.
People just like me can stopbullying all together by remem-bering to do a few simple things.I can accept people for who theyare.Thismeansnotmakingfunofpeople simply because they aredifferent or have different inter-ests. I can also include people indaily activities, rather than leav-ingthemoutorexcludingthem.Icanevendosomethingassimple
as not voicing rude opinions orthoughts.
With effort from me as well aseveryone, we can stop bullying.This not only benefits the vic-tims, but it benefits everyone. Itwould create much happier peo-ple.Simplyput,allwehavetodoto stop bullying is make a slighteffort to be kind.” — Linda Buto,eighth grade, Saint Luke School
“One reason why we shouldnot bully is that bullying is not agood thing to do. It could destroypeople’s lives. Think of how youwould like it. Here is anotherreason: it could also make peo-ple sad. And it could also makepeople sad. They could think ofnegative things.
We can stop it. You can stopit by being nice to people. Liketheysay,‘Treatothersthewayyou
want to be treated.’Bullyingcansometimesbevio-
lent. It’s not a good thing. Some-times people do things that youdo not want to do, like talk youinto doing bad things. Some-times, kids like to be violent, andthat is not a good thing. You canstop it by talking to people aboutthese things. Do not leave it inyour head. Talk about it.” — An-thoni Holt, sixth grade, Fort LeBoeufMiddle School
“We should stop bullying atschool because it hurts the chil-dren who are being bullied, anditmakesthemsadandmad.Also,bullyingcanmakeapersonwantto hurt themselves and/or oth-ers. Lots of families have beendestroyed by bullying. I can helpstopbullyingbytellingtheteach-erwhenitishappening,bystand-
ing up to my friends and tellingthem not to be a bully if they areone, and by being niceto people.Andbynotbeingabullytosome-one else.” — Shanell Aria Fairley,first grade, Saint James School
“I would like to stop bully-ing in schools. I would have anassembly and talk to everyoneabout bullying and how bully-ing is mean and wrong. I wouldthen allow kids to voice whatthey felt bullying. I would haveall classes make bully-free-zoneposters and hang them aroundschool. I would reward kids thatwere caught avoiding a bully orfor doing the right thing. I wouldreward them with an ice creamparty. And continue to remindthe kids that bullying is bad.”— Jazmin Chiemara, fourth grade,Perry School
What can you do to help eliminate bullying?
Writing: TheErieTimes-Newshasbeenaroundformorethan125 years. Many people enjoy the news coverage and local sto-ries, while others might enjoy the photographs and sports cov-erage. Why do we need newspapers in the world today? Whatis their value in society?
Artwork: One popular section in the Erie Times-News is theweather report. Autumn is winding down, and winter is on itsway.Wealsohavespringandsummertolookforwardto.Drawand color a picture of your favorite season.
Responses: Send student responses to us. Material must bereceived by Dec. 11, to be published in the newspaper.
Extra! Extra! Write all about it!
By STACY TORINOIllustrated by ROEL WIELINGA
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Visit the ErieTimes-News inEducation web-site at NIE.Go-Erie.comtofindlesson plans,classroom ac-tivities and stu-dent artworkand writing.
Although it’s a fictionalstory, “Robyn Reports” issimilar to what happens inyour town. Choose one ofthe stories in the “RobynReports” and then find anarticle in the Erie Times-News that is most like it.Then, write a comparisonof the two stories.
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6D | Erie Times-News | GoErie.com | Monday, December 7, 2015
