YONKERS PUBLIC SCHOOLS JANUARY 2020 Tiger Talk

Kahlil Gibran School To Host First Annual Multicultural Festival This Spring!

This Spring, Kahlil Gibran School will be hosting its first ever Multicultural Festival! This exciting new initiative will provide students across all grade levels to showcase their unique cultural experiences for all to see. One of

the greatest strengths of Kahlil Gibran has always been the diversity of students, and this event seeks to highlight that. More details coming soon!

Gaming + Education?

(pg. 3)

Letter from the Editor

By Student Editor: Chloe Vazquez (pg. 7)

Film Review: A Beautiful Day in the

Neighborhood (pg. 9)

KAHLIL GIBRAN CORNER

Lessons from our school’s namesake! (pg. 8)

1GIBRAN'S ATHLETES

New Intramural Program is a Great Success (pg. 8)

2GRADE LEVEL

FEATURES What’s happening in Pre-K-8? (pg. 4/5/6)

3

YONKERS PUBLIC SCHOOLS JANUARY 2020

Tiger Talk Kahlil Gibran School’s Official School Newspaper

Happy New Year Gibran Family!

As we begin a new year I’d like to start by sharing with everyone how grateful I am for our entire learning community. We have amazing students, an extraordinary staff and incredible parents/guardians.

I’d like to recap some new and old initiatives that have taken place in our learning community:

I’d like to begin by welcoming to Gibran Mr. Cassano, our new Assistant Principal! He brings lots of great ideas and experience to the Gibran family!

We now have an official sign to showcase our school on the front lawn.

I am so proud to report close to 200 students made the Honor Roll first marking period! Our new pilot reading program, "Into Reading", for Grades K-6 has been well received by both students and faculty. We are hoping this program will help our students to achieve even more!

Congratulations to Ms Romano’s 6th grade Math classes - they came in First Place in a district-wide math Contest based on "SumDog", an online Math program.

Our students' character is truly tested through their Community Service. At Gibran, students engaged in taking the "Kindness Challenge": they held a food-drive, and the upper grades are supporting lower grades by peer tutoring and volunteering to give up their recess to assist the with the Pre-K students. The NEHS (National Elementary Honor Society) is collecting gently used books and school supplies for impoverished African countries and the NJHS (National Junior Honor Society) is raising money to help drill and build wells to bring water to villages in South Sudan.

Intramural sports has kicked off with Soccer and now Basketball. We are excited that Mr. Rizzo, our 7th/8th grade Social Studies teacher, will be coaching the boys basketball team for the first time this year!

The girls basketball team also has a new coach. He comes from Martin Luther King Jr. School. We’d like to welcome Coach Mosa Samarneh.

I am thrilled and beaming with pride to see our learning community continue to collaborate for success !

I know the new year will be a productive and successful year for all!

-Mrs. White

TIGER TALK - KAHLIL GIBRAN SCHOOL JANUARY 2020 - PAGE 2

Can gaming be a valuable educational tool? Exploring Minecraft Education Edition by Joseph Siciliano

Minecraft is an extremely popular game that isn't just a game, its an entire gaming platform that entire worlds can be built in. Most adults, and even some kids, probably think that Minecraft is just a

game, but did you know that it can be used for academic purposes!

There are many things Minecraft can do to help teach students. For example, there is a mobile version of Minecraft just for teaching purposes called Minecraft Education Edition. In this version of Minecraft, a teacher can make accounts for all their students and teach them by making a world and bringing them all in to learn. For example, students can be taught about science and maps. There is

also a type of block to build with to keep the students' avatars in the designated area. Minecraft Education Edition can teach science by having students make elements out of atoms and take them apart out of their elements. You can also combine and take apart some blocks by mixing elements.

There is one element with just question marks, and I like to think that element is what ever you want it to be. By using this, students can learn about complicated things like the Periodic Table of

Elements, in a new way besides just using a textbook to do it.

Minecraft can also teach basic coding. With the use of command block, students can make commands to create self building castles and make huge cubes. Minecraft can teach us so much

already and it has much more that can teach coming in the future. For instance, it can teach anatomy (if the teachers have the time to build the creature they are looking at). They can actually use

command block to make the bodies of the animals. As technology continues to evolve and develop, I am excited about the new ways that we can use technology, even games, to learn!


Pre-K News: Our youngest learners in Mrs. Ciccone's Pre-Kindergarten class had the amazing opportunity to learn about fire-safety first-hand! Members of the Yonkers Fire Department came to our school to give the students the chance to get up-close and personal with a firetruck and all of its firefighting tools! Students were able to sit inside the firetruck and see all of the parts of it, were able to learn about fire safety and even got the chance to see a firehose in action! This exciting opportunity is sure to inspire students' imaginations and maybe to even get them interested in a career as a firefighter some day!

Kindergarten News: In Mrs. Marvin's Kindergarten class, students have been learning about the country of Mexico in preparation for their participation in Gibran's upcoming Multicultural Festival! They've been listening to and learning Selena's song, "I am Dreaming" and more. They've also been working on handwriting their daily journals and learning write their first and last names. Students recently made gingerbread houses, ornaments, and played holiday games.

1st Grade News: In the 1st grade, both Mrs. Khader and Mrs. Troiano's students have gotten off to a great start to the new year! The classes have talked about the meaning of the word "resolution" and how a New Year's Resolution can help a student to be their best. They discussed goals they would like to achieve. Students in 1st grade are also learning about animals and how they use their bodies to adapt to the environment.

2nd Grade News: In Mrs. Perez's and Mrs. Castellani's second grade classes, bake sales have been underway to fund upcoming trips and the class is planning to celebrate Chinese New Year on the 24th. For Chinese New Year students will be enjoying Chinese food and they will also be studying China for the upcoming Multicultural Celebration!

3rd Grade News: In the third grade, students are learning about the country Brazil, which is what we've been assigned for the upcoming Multicultural Festival! We found out that it is the 5th largest country in the world! We also learned that it is in South America.

We are going to make masks and mosaics about it. We've made maps and have had reading groups to learn about it. We've learned to work hard and always listen and to do our best. -Zain Al-Hnaity and Madison Mendes

TIGER TALK - KAHLIL GIBRAN SCHOOL JANUARY 2020- PAGE 4

4th Grade News: All Aboard! Our Trip to the Train Show by Brianna Wiley, Taylor Lavery & Audrey Canlas

There are many magnificent things about the fourth grade, however, our trip to the New Yorl Botanical Gardens on December 6, 2019, was by far the greatest thrill. At the NYBG we went to the train show. The model trains traveled through a display of more than 175 New York landmarks which were made by all natural materials. The most exciting to us were the Statue of Liberty, Yankee Stadium, Grand Central Station and the Brooklyn Bridge.

Towards the end of the exhibit we came upon a mind-blowing surprise. They had a model Sunnyside, which is the home of Washington Irving. We also went on a field trip to Sunnyside in November! Making this discovery and realizing how much we have learned was super cool!

We wonder where we will go next?

5th Grade News: In our classes, we are learning about what events led up to the American Revolution. For example, the French and Indian War. We also learned how the British made the Stamp Act and had it repealed in one year. We are learning much more in Social Studies. There are also many trips we went on. We went to the Botanical Gardens to watch the train show. We also went to the Liberty Science Center. We learned and had fun. 5th grade is a blast! - Liam Cassidy

6th Grade News: Our Trip to Caramoor by Sariyah Fidelis

When you think of a mansion all you would think of is a big house. Caramoor is a huge mansion filled with rooms from around the world! From India to China. At the time we were learning about architecture. The different types of designs, buildings, etc. Since Caramoor was filled with so many different types, it was like walking into our class lesson.

We were all separated into groups and each got our own tour guide. We didn't get to explore all the rooms but it was still a pleasant trip. The tour guide told us that some of the rooms may look like they were made by a Chinese artist or architect but they were actually made by Italians.

After the tour we got to create our own structures based on how the music we were listening to made us feel. Some people made tall structures and some small. At the end we got to destroy them and have a race for whose team could clean it up the fastest.


7th & 8th Grade News:


The upper-classes here at Kahlil Gibran School have been busy preparing for Regents Exams, State Exams, and other rigorous academic requirements, but have also been representing our school on the field and court! Our girls' soccer team (left) and girls' basketball team (right) have made us

proud, as have our boys' teams! Come out to a game and support the Tigers!

Our 8th graders just recently took their graduation photos! As they prepare to say goodbye to Gibran and move forward to high school and beyond, they had an opportunity to dress to impress and have one last school picture taken as middle school students. Class 8-2 (left) and 8-1 (right) posed for group photos after they finished their individual ones. June is right around the corner

and it'll be time for our 8th graders to cast their high school ballots in just a few weeks!

A Letter from the Student Editor by Chloe Vazquez If you follow the news frequently, you may be familiar the name Greta Thunberg, but who really is this girl and how is she inspiring people across the nation, and the world?

Greta Thunberg is a 16-year-old girl from Stockholm, Sweden. In 2011 when Greta was only 8 years old, she found out about climate change and was confused as to how nobody had taken and significant action. Three years later, she became depressed, lethargic, stopped talking, stopped eating, and was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome, also sometimes known as a high functioning version of Autism, which she calls her superpower. She feels that her condition actually makes her an even stronger advocate for the causes that she cares about most and embraces it, while others may see it as a negative factor.

Despite her young age and complex diagnosis, Greta has been able to change her family lifestyle (for reducing their carbon footprint), organize a school strike (for climate change)and even speak at the 2018 United Nations Climate Change Conference as well as the 2019 United Nations Climate Action Summit! Greta inspires us to do more by setting an example for not only society but the younger generations. She shows we can not only do more but make an impact, despite hardships if we try hard enough. She started out striking alone, and within a year's time had MILLIONS of people around the world taking notice and joining her in their own countries and cities. That is why Time Magazine named her the most influential person of the year for 2019.

By being very passionate about her cause, Greta was able to take a 15-day voyage from Plymouth, UK to New York, US on a 60 foot racing yacht, powered by solar panels and underwater turbines. If you look outside of the issue of climate change for just a minute, since it can be divisive, you can see how one girl dedicates herself to a cause and will stop at nothing to get it recognized, which ultimately is something we can all do. Finding something we are passionate about and making a change is something I find important. If you’re going to be recognized for something, we all have potential to make what we are seen for beneficial to the place we will live, the people we live with and the coming generations.

Many things are yet to be addressed, and who knows what we can find most important. Start localized, get thinking, and find an issue yet to be addressed in your community and figure out how you can help? Greta Thunberg changed her family lifestyle by becoming vegan, giving up air travel, and by upcycling.

Greta used her ability to showcase incredible persistence as a way that doesn’t only benefit her but all of us, including you and I. Greta has showcased all she’s done for the benefit of mankind and was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. How can you show persistence, dedication, and passion like Greta? That is up to you. In the end, we can all obtain inspiration from Greta and make a change on our future. If everyone cared about a cause, any cause, as much as Greta does, the world would become a better place quicker than we realize.


Kahlil Gibran Corner: Each issue, we here at Tiger Talk would like to challenge students to think in the way that our school’s namesake, Kahlil Gibran, did. Gibran is known for his thoughtful teachings that can help people to improve their daily lives by changing their perspective on the things they experience.

In the quote above, Gibran explains how even the tiniest things can make us joyful and happy. Some people in the world can be grateful for and made happy by the smallest things that other people may not even notice. Depending on how we look at something and the perspective we take, two people can see something very different in the same thing. If we keep looking for big and exciting things to make us happy, we may miss the happiness that is right in front of us every day. -Isabella Vazquez

A Great Start For Intramural Sports: Continuing our annual tradition of having student athletes represent our school in intramural sports, this year we have already had an intramural soccer program come and go and are currently at the beginning of basketball season!

The soccer season was a great success, with both the boys and girls teams impressing as they learned the basic skills required to play the sport in a collaborative way. Mr. Galland, our 7th and 8th grade Math teacher, and Mr. Figueroa, one of our 5th grade teachers, coached the girls' team, while Mr. Rizzo, our 7th and 8th grade Social Studies teacher coached the boys.

Now, we move into the winter season and our intramural basketball program has just begun. The boys' team is being coached by Mr. Rizzo, who has extensive experience coaching in many programs outside of our school and district. The girls' team is being coached by Mosa Samarneh, a teacher at MLK Jr. School, who is new to our building but is himself a YPS graduate. Keep an eye out for a schedule of games for our basketball teams and be sure to come out and support our Gibran Tigers!


Film Review - A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood by Chloe Vazquez

"A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood", released November 22nd 2019, stars Tom Hanks as American cultural icon Fred Rogers, and follows Lloyd Vogel and Mr. Rogers, on a journey of dealing with death, forgiveness, and anger. Lloyd Vogel is a writer for a magazine who seems to often drill too far into the lives of those he interviews, sometimes being too truthful and often making his writings more of an exposé, than what the subject of the interview may have originally expected.

Lloyd is assigned to interview Mr. Rogers, but Lloyd seems to be dealing with an inner struggle. I think the overall focus of the movie is not only on Mr. Rogers and his amazing ability to connect with children and help them deal with hard emotions/topics but mainly the struggles dealt with by many; grief, anger, denial, and forgiveness.

Mr. Rogers was selfless but not perfect, he simply found ways to deal with his own emotions by channeling them into something else, certain scenes express the appreciation society had for him.

Lloyd Vogel has a hard time forgiving those who’ve hurt him and his own struggle of trying to be there for his son. Lloyd showcases all four struggles mentioned earlier, often denying there’s anything wrong but eventually (with help of Mr. Rogers) overcoming his own problems.

In the present time, there are many things we can learn from not only this movie but Mr. Rogers and his ideas as a whole, dealing with our emotions in a way that we don’t hurt ourselves or anybody else.

Overall, if you read in between the lines, there are many things we can learn and appreciate. Figures in society, such as Fred Rogers, are prominent to the growth and development of society and coming generations giving not only children but even adults helpful advice from one of their own. Hopefully many more children will grow up with the examples of Mr. Rogers, and others like him, to provide a positive example, in a world that provides no shortage of negative ones.


Tiger Talk is proudly brought to you by:

Principal: Mrs. Dianne White

Assistant Principal: Mr. Christopher Cassano

Faculty Advisers: Mrs. P. Ackerman & Mr. L. Di Monaco

Student Editor: Chloe Vazquez


YONKERS PUBLIC SCHOOLS JANUARY 2020 Tiger Talk

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