Lisa Trusa, Phys. Ed. Teacher transformed her gym into 14 bowling lanes.  She sets up full sized plastic pins complete with pin-spots on the floor.  Gym mats surround the pins creating individual lanes.

Ken Yokobosky, Former Team USA Bowling Coach, PBA Champion, and Storm Staff Member, was asked to visit the students and help teach the basics of the game.  “I think it is amazing that Mrs. Trusa incorporates bowling into her program.  She is very knowledgeable about the game herself.  I am honored that she asks me to assist.   More people bowl each year than participate in any other sport,” Coach Ken happily states.  “High School bowling is on the rise.  I have seen several students receive full bowling scholarships to college, including Ivy League schools.  As the students enter the gym, their faces light up when they see the pins.  It is exciting to see their enthusiasm.  I never experienced bowling in gym class when I went to elementary school.”

Students are taught the proper grip, approach, bowling basics, and scoring.  The bowling runs for two weeks and is offered every other year.  Coach Ken has his display of Storm balls that he uses in Pro competition.  One of the unique features of the Storm brand balls is the unique fragrances embedded in each.  “Storm Bowling Company scents their bowling balls.  The kids have a ball, no pun intended, guessing what each fragrance is!”

Mrs. Trusa’s third graders demonstrate the proper fingers used in the bowling grip. 
To remember it they think “Rock Star!!!”

Fredon sixth graders researched and reported on unrecognized people who provided military, patriotic, and public service in support of the American Revolution for this year’s Daughters of American History essay contest.   Four Fredon students were recognized at our local Chinkchewunska Chapter.  Alexis Cooke was the Chapter winner at the 6th grade level.  2nd place went to Sydney Slepian, 3rd place to Alyssa Nagy, and Honorable Mention was awarded to Amanda Keppler.  First Place winner Alexis Cooke will be honored at a luncheon in April at the Elias Van Bunschooten Museum in Wantage Township.  Fredon School is so proud of all its winners.

Pictured are: Alexis, Alyssa, Sydney and Amanda.

~ This article was originally posted on the NJ Heralds Website~

~Link to original article~

---

By LYNDSAY CAYETANA BOUCHAL

lbouchal@njherald.com

STILLWATER — Bundled in layers upon layers of clothes, covered by snow pants and scarves and ski masks, 49 sixth-grade students from Fredon Elementary took a lesson in orienteering Tuesday.

Despite blisteringly cold weather conditions, the sixth-graders were unfazed by temperatures that plummeted into the teens this week while on their four-day environmental education experience at the Fairview Lake YMCA camp in Stillwater.

"It's a little cold, but it doesn't take away the fun of the trip," said 12-year-old Alexis Cooke.

Part of the fun is heading back inside, warming up and getting hot cocoa with friends, said 11-year-old Matthew Murray.

Sixth-grade math teacher Steve Olsyn, who has taught while on the outing for five years, said the environmental trip is an annual excursion taken at the end of January each year. The sixth-grade class arrived at the campgrounds on Tuesday and will stay overnight in heated cabins through Friday.

"This is record-setting temperatures for coldness for this trip, though," Olsyn said.

Some years, temperatures rose to the 40s and 50s during the environmental trip, Olsyn recalled.

Sixth-graders on the outing are taught orienteering skills including reading a compass, how to estimate distances and heights of trees and also participated in activities such as baking colonial apple crisp and cross-country skiing.

Olsyn said students came prepared for the outdoor adventure with snow pants, jackets, gloves, hats and hand and feet warmers, which were outlined in a checklist given to parents.

"I haven't heard anything (about kids complaining about the weather)," said special education teacher Allison Dolan. "Actually, they started complaining and were disappointed when we didn't go outside."

Olsyn said none of the outdoor activities were canceled due to the frigid weather, though some of the introductions to lessons and activities were done inside to "shorten their time outside."

One of the students' favorite activities thus far was a blind-folded night hike through the campgrounds when temperatures dropped into the single digits Tuesday.

The blind-folded students were instructed to hold onto a rope and were then guided through the wooded area by teachers' voices. The hike was used as a trust and communication exercise as teachers told them when to turn and what to expect until they reached their destination, the camp's worship area and chapel.

"I was so nervous where we were going, I didn't notice the cold," Alexis said. "When I took the blindfold off, I realized how cold it was."

Once the bandanas were removed from their eyes, the students remained nearly unscathed by the stark cold, too enamored with the quiet natural beauty of the camp and the moon reflecting off the icy lake and snow-spotted ground.

"The moon was shining down really cool on us," Matthew said.

"All you could see was the black outline of the cross," Alexis said.

~ This article was originally posted on the NJ Heralds Website~

~Link to original article~

By LYNDSAY

CAYETANA BOUCHAL

lbouchal@njherald.com

If you consider the possibility that kindergarten is an indication of where our country is headed, the news is good, a Fredon kindergarten teacher said Monday.

As Betty Picone taught her class of kindergarten students about Martin Luther King Jr. on his day of remembrance Monday, the educator learned a thing or two herself on the evolution of society.

"I gave them the information and their astonishment that there could have been that kind of problem blows me away," Picone said after concluding her lesson on King. "Children are coming into school without prejudice. In fact, they have difficulty understanding what the word means."

One boy in class raised his hand and asked, "Let me get this straight, Mrs. Picone, they were mean for no reason? Can you explain that to me?"

Picone replied, "No, I can't. They were mean for no good reason."

Another student piggybacked off the first's question: "Wait a minute, was it the blacks who were mean to the whites?"

"That just tickled me," Picone said. "Parents are doing it right. They're not giving their kids the prejudice that I grew up with and my father grew up with. They aren't coming into school with the attitude, ‘you're different than me,' they're coming into school with the attitude, ‘we're all the same.' "

Barbara Kostenko, a second-grade teacher at Alpine School in Sparta, said she has experienced the same reactions from her students over the last few years.

"They think it's utterly bizarre," Kostenko said. "But I don't know if it's wonderful to say that prejudice and racism is going away or (if) it's youth -- they're seven and eight years old."

Regardless, Kostenko said, "They find it astonishing that they had separate water fountains and separate bathrooms."

In previous years, the Alpine School teacher said she's had children who have grown upset when they realized they wouldn't have attended the same school as some of their classmates or been allowed to be friends with them because of their skin color.

Similarly, second-grade teachers Dara Wohl and Jess Wilds at Green Hills School said their students struggled with the idea of segregation.

From that discussion, Wohl said she and her colleague introduced "the idea that racism is still prevalent in our modern day world -- not the same as it was 60 years ago, but in different forms."

"The foreign idea of racism still present in our world fostered students' initiative to live a life of example and demonstrates how (King's) legacy continues to live on through each of us as the future," Wohl said.

Picone said her students' discussion on differences and inequality then blossomed into a discussion "about other ways people can be mean, but don't have to." Picone said the kindergartners brought up examples of children with glasses or curly hair or classmates with clothes that aren't as nice as others' and how they should be all be accepted and treated equally.

"If you use kindergarten as a barometer, I think we are headed in the right direction," Picone said.