Chickering Student Radio
We wanted to interview Mrs. Welch because she does so much 
for her students and teachers. After talking with her, we know why she is such a wonderful teacher. We hope you enjoy listening to our chat with Mrs. Welch.
Reported By: Addie, Owen, and Jaron
ChickeringRob Surette and his 
Hero Art came to our school. What an amazing and inspiring presentation. We had a quick interview with Mr. Surette to learn more. We hope you have an opportunity to see his performance and art. You can see some of his art on his website. Happy Listening!
Reported by Sophie C., Bryan, Grant, and Matt. T.
We experimented using a new iPad App called TouchCast. We recorded a couple of book reviews to learn how it all works.
Enjoy!
Abby, Jenna and Sam
http://touchcast.com/chickering/book_reviews_from_ch_reporters-8326/
We have been reading Malcolm at Midnight by W. H. Beck and illustrated by Brian Lies, in our book group. During our 8 weeks of working with Mrs. Chase, our Librarian, Brian Lies came to visit with all of the 2nd grade students [Thanks to our wonderful Dover PTO!]. We had an opportunity to talk with Mr. Lies during his visit and ask him some questions. We hope you enjoy getting to know Brian Lies, author and illustrator extraordinair!
Q 1: Which do you like to do better, write the story, illustrate the story or illustrate your own stories? Why?
Brian Lies shared, publishers usually choose the illustrator for a book, the author doesn’t have any say in who illustrates their story. He likes to be both author and illustrator because it allows him to change words and/or pictures as the story develops.
Q 2: What is your process for writing a book?
He starts with an idea. The process is “messy” and not easy. His imagination gives him some words and pictures. When he is drawing, words sometimes come to him and he writes them down. He ends up with a collection of words and pictures and then tries to make them match. So you can see how he thinks it is a messy process.
Q 3: How do you come up with the ideas for your books?
The best ideas come from real life experiences. He writes about what he likes to do and knows the best. For example, riding a horse – you know how it feels to ride the horse and the movement of the horse, so it makes it easy to write about that.
You can write about the world around you, for instance, he looked around the room and noticed an air vent. He came up with this story about a person who did something so bad that he got stuck in the air vent. Or he noticed the rug in the room and thought it was much smaller than the room. It made him think maybe a secret door was hidden under the rug where teachers kept chocolate.
Authors and illustrators use their imagination to help create their stories. A writer/illustrator needs to be a “noticer” and ask how can I use this ‘thing’ in a story, such as the air vent. You need to teach yourself to think and ask questions about everything.
Q 4: What is your process for illustrating your books?
Mr Lies says the first part of the process for illustrating books is coming up with the ideas for the pictures. For chapter books he reads the book once for fun then he’ll read it again with a blue pencil. He will circle what he wants to draw. After Mr Lies goes in with a blue pencil, he reads the story again and asks himself how does the story flow? In the slow, boring parts, he will add illustration to make it seem more interesting. He may read the story up to six times to make sure he gets the details correct. Then based on what he knows he’ll begin sketching his picture ideas. This is how Mr Lies comes up with the ideas for illustrations.
Q 5: Why did you choose to illustrate Malcolm at Midnight and Malcolm Under the Stars books?
When asked by his editor to illustrate Malcolm at Midnight and Malcolm Under the Stars, Mr. Lies said that he really wanted to focus on writing his own stories instead. The editor asked him to just read the books. Mr. Lies read the books and loved them. The books felt so much like the favorite stories he loved as a boy like Cricket in Time Squares and Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimph. He really loved the characters and the many exciting adventures Malcolm experienced during the story. He felt sorry for poor Malcolm and his troubles. It made sense for Mr. Lies to illustrate the books.
Q 6: How do you choose the scenes to illustrate in Malcolm at Midnight?
When he is reading the story, he is thinking about what the story looks like in his mind. He keeps two things in his thought while he reads the story.
So he looks carefully at the words, to see what would be the mostly interesting to illustrate. Then he looks for something to draw, in order to carry the reader forward in the story. Finally, Mr. Lies really wants to make sure his illustrations smooth out the reading experience for the reader.
Q 7: What kinds of research do you have to do to illustrate the Malcolm series?
These are the kinds of research Mr. Lies needs to do to illustrate the Malcolm series. There are a lot of animals in his books. He keeps a cabinet filled with pictures of animals. Mr. Lies pulls out a picture to look at the shapes and differences between the animals. Malcolm looked in the book like he was a bit mousey even though he is a rat because in Malcolm at Midnight, the teacher and students thought Malcolm was a mouse. W. H. Beck, the author, has a blog. Mr. Lies sneaked around the web like Malcolm sneaking around at night. He found the blog sneaking around on the web. He uses it for looking at pictures that W. H. Beck recommended to him. On the web, he found pictures of the school [McKenna]. His illustrations of the hallway were similar to the pictures. Mr. Lies also found a website of the actual school. He wanted to know where the rooms were located but some of the author’s words were confusing. So she sent him a drawing of the school. It was a map of a real school she knew. She marked up the ‘kindergarten room’ and Amelia’s classroom on the map. It was his first time talking to an author of a book he was illustrating. This is what Mr. Lies has to do to research for his illustrations.
Q 8: What are you working on now? Is it a book you are writing or one you are illustrating?
He is working on a book, which he is both writing and illustrating. The main character of the book is a fox who experiences sadness. The format of the new book is a picturebook. The ‘working’ title of the book is The Creepy Garden of Evan Foulstitch. Mr. Lies has been told that parents don’t like the word “creepy” in the title so he may have to come up with another option.
His publisher turned down this book because they didn’t like the idea of an animal having an animal for a pet. Mr. Lies is meeting with a new publisher and maybe it will be a ‘yes’. His job is to convince this new publisher, where half the people don’t like the idea of an animal having a pet and half already love the idea.
In the story, fox has a dog for a pet. The dog and fox do everything together. Unfortunately, the dog dies. The fox acts like a human but looks like a fox. Mr. Lies thinks it is a sad but beautiful story. The story shows that you can come out of sadness and be happy again. He wants to draw the illustrations for this story more than he has ever wanted to draw for any book.
We loved the opportunity to meet and chat with Mr. Lies. We are grateful for his generosity of time and information.
Thank you, Mr. Brian Lies, for your words, your art, and your time with us!
Harrison, Mia, Raina and Chase
2nd Grade Guest Reporters
Permission received, from Mr. Lies (who retains the copyright of all his artwork), to use the cover art from the book Malcolm at Midnight.
CHICKERING STUDENT RADIO
The fifth grade students saw a presentation of a Sa
lem Witch Trial. The presentation was captivating and we thought it would be interesting to talk with one of the actors. We hope you enjoy our conversation.
Reported by: Audrey, Emily, Jane, Lauren, and Liza
Do you like donating to various charities that help all kinds of animals and people? That is exactly what Chickering School is doing this year for the first time. The fifth grade students at Chickering vote to choose the charities that the school will donate to, and the rest of the school can donate (optional) in exchange to be part of a fun activity! Our first day of donating was titled: “Crazy Hat Day!”. 
On January 21st, the second fun activity was “Wacky Wednesday”, a day where you could donate one dollar to wear wacky clothes! Each dollar collected goes to the charity selected for the month. This fantastic new idea is called Make a Difference Day!
This is Chickering’s first year participating in Make a Difference Day. Make a Difference Day is a day where the entire school gets together to help a charity around the world. We are doing Make a Difference to help make the world a better place, one charity at a time.
How much of a difference do you think a dollar can really make? Not much you assume… Think again! One of the fifth grade classes was reading a TFK (Time for Kids) in the TFK, it talked about a charity called Aarambah, and they wanted to donate to it.
Aarambah is an organization that uses its donations to make help desks. What is a help desk you ask? A Help Desk is a desk that takes 20 cents to make. 
These desks are made out of recycled cardboard and can be converted into a suitcase and backpack. When the kids use these desks it will improve their posture. How? Most kids in India don’t have desks and chairs like we do in here at Chickering. So, in school, they sit on the ground and hunch over their work. With the help desks, it will cause them to sit up and this will improve their posture. Our first Make a Difference Day we donated to the amazing charity…(drum roll)… Aarambah! Clearly, this is a very amazing charity that people all over the world can donate to.
The fifth graders run the Make a Difference program, because they are the student role models and the leaders of Chickering. Every classroom in the fifth grade is assigned a grade by their teacher and there are groups in that classroom that are assigned a certain class in that grade. The students talk to their assigned grade and tell them about the charity and the privilege that they will receive if they donate. It’s great that the other grades are looking forward to donating and making a difference.
Without a doubt, Make a Difference Day is a great way to get the community together and help the world! With three or four more of these days, Chickering is sure to make a big impact! Our next difference day has already been scheduled! It is on March 11th and we get to wear all neon! Chickering is learning, laughing, and making a difference, one charity at a time.
Reported by Liza, Jane, Emily, Lauren
Do you exercise your whole body? We have a tradition at our school that encourages us to exercise our mind and body. For 6-weeks each year we count the number of minutes we read and exercise each day. After we’ve done 10 hours of reading or exercising we receive either a book charm or a sneaker charm. This is our ninth year and some students’ necklaces are very full. Each year, one class in each grade level, with the most number of total minutes receives a trophy and each student in that class receives a trophy charm.
To kick-off Fit and Lit we have an assembly. First, we have a slideshow of students exercising and reading around our school. This year the music for the slideshow was “What does fox say?” and “Chickering Rocks!” our new school song. In P.E. class, we learned some dances and during the assembly we danced one of our new line dances (representing the Fit aspect). Our librarian, Mrs. Chase dressed up as Tacky the Penguin and read the story, Tacky the Penguin by Helen Lester (representing the Lit aspect). These activities demonstrated two ways we can count minutes for exercising and reading. It was great to move and listen to a story instead of just sitting during the whole assembly.
Each Friday, we hand in the completed logs of 600 minutes of either Fit and/or Lit. When we come in on Monday, we have our charms: sneaker for Fit, book for Lit. On the last Friday, we celebrate Fit and Lit with “Read Your Heart Out Day”. It is a fun day where we spend the day reading with our friends in the school. Sometimes we have a guest reader and/or read with a younger class. An added bonus is that we wear pajamas and slippers to school. We can also bring pillows and a blanket. It is one of our favorite days of school.
To wrap up Fit and Lit, we had an assembly to celebrate all the minutes we read and exercised. The slideshow was different this time it showed “Read Your Heart Out Day” and Winter Olympic events in P.E classes. The music was the Olympic Theme Song and the Chickering School Song. The librarian again dressed up as Tacky the Penguin and read Tacky and the Winter Olympics in honor of the winter games held at school and in Sochi, Russia.
Trophies and classroom charms were presented to each of the 6 grade level winners.
Kindergarten: Mrs. Disch 84,000 minutes
Grade 1: Ms Cronin 77,310 minutes
Grade 2: Mrs. Moran 75,150 minutes
Grade 3: Mrs. Bedell-Healy 51,000 minutes
Grade 4: Mr. Keohane 94,770 minutes
Grade 5: Mr. Wadness 65,220 minutes
The entire school celebrated reading and exercising 1,477,800 minutes! WOW!
We were curious about what some of the fifth graders thought about Fit and Lit. So we asked several students how many charms they had earned. Three students lost or misplaced their charms,1 has 20, 2 have 30 charms, 1 has 36, and 1 has 25 Fit and 30 Lit, for a total of 55 charms. Four students said it was easier to earn Fit charms than Lit and 2 shared the opposite. Several have lost their charm necklaces, one keeps their necklace in a drawer next to their bed, another hangs her necklace on the corner of a mirror, and 2 keep theirs in a shirt drawer or sock drawer. We wondered what is their favorite part of Fit and Lit. Two like to challenge themselves to see how many minutes they can exercise and read and a couple like to see how many minutes they can earn for Fit. 1 likes Read Your Heart Out Day”, 1 likes seeing how many minutes in all they can earn, 1 likes to see who won in each of the grades, 1 likes both the exercising and reading, 2 students like the Fit component greatest, and another 1 likes all the assemblies. The last question we asked was were there any changes they would like to see in the program and most said “No.” 1 wants it to be longer than 6-weeks and 1 wants it to be shorter for the younger kids. It’s clear the students love the fantastic Fit & Lit program.
We chatted with our new P.E. teacher about Fit & Lit. Mrs. Hayes likes how it 
encourages everyone to keep track of their minutes so you know whether to read or exercise more. Reading, she discovered was an area that she needed to spend more time on. Now that you know about Fit & Lit you might want to consider joining us next year to exercise your whole mind and body.
Reported by Tommy, Ben, and Sam
Do you dislike getting stung by a bee? Chickering has bees but they don’t sting, in fact, they don’t 
even buzz! These bees are robots called BeeBots. They are used to teach kindergartners and first graders programming skills.
BeeBots are bee-shaped, simple robots. To program the robots you need to use the seven buttons on the top of the BeeBots: forward and back arrows, left and right arrows, go and pause buttons and a clear button. The students use the BeeBots with number, coins , shapes or letter mats and they also use blocks to create mazes. The students need to learn to be precise in their commands for the BeeBots. (Please click on the underlined words to see short video demonstrations.)
We were wondering why Mr. Harte was using robots with the kindergarten classes, so we asked for an interview. He explained that programming teaches students cause and effect and problem solving skills. It is challenging for kindergartners to work in groups but they learn to share, take turns, be patient with each other and with the BeeBots.
We were curious about how his instructions differ between kindergarten and grade 1 students. He gave us two examples. A simple task for kindergarten would be to program the BeeBots to go from a red circle to a blue square on a mat with shapes. First grade’s task would take a trick spelling word and program the BeeBot to stop on each letter, on a letter mat, to spell the word. The examples that Mr. Harte provided certainly gave us a good idea about how the programming gets more difficult as the children get older.
We were surprised how the BeeBots worked when we saw the students working with the robots. We were impressed with how well the students worked together. We were also amazed with how well the students programmed the BeeBots and they didn’t get frustrated when the robot didn’t do what they wanted. It would have been cool to have the experience of programming the robots when we were in kindergarten and first grade.
Reported by: Marley, Sophie, and George
Remember the live show with juggling, cartwheels and lots more? Well you can thank the director of the FoodPlay Productions Melinda Beasi for the fun-filled performance!
The FoodPlay program has been going on since 1982 and has already won 10 prizes for their great performance and messages about eating healthier. FoodPlay sends out a great message: Eating healthy is very important for your health. Eating healthy will make you strong as you grow up and even help you live longer. 
Over 4 million school children love FoodPlay! “About 75% of children are reporting dramatic improvements in their eating and exercising habits following the FoodPlay experience. More than 90 schools have rated this program excellent and many have said this was the best production they have ever seen.” This production is for grades K-9 and/or families. Tons of teachers have written comments that they love the FoodPlay Productions.
FoodPlay Productions came to Chickering on 10/15/2012, to teach everybody about eating right. The students and staff loved and enjoyed this production and many times we heard laughter from all grades. There was also lots of reactions from the audience to the play during the production. They make eating healthy fun! While doing tricks they are also teaching kids how to eat right. To learn more go to: www.foodplay.com .
Reported by Olivia, Loren, Katie and Matty
Who’s in charge when the Principal isn’t here? The Vice Principal! Or in other words, Ms Keniry.
Ms Keniry taught in a lot of schools before she came to Chickering such as schools in South America for 2 years, Framingham for 20 years, and a Japanese School in Boston for 10 years. She was at Chickering School for 10 years. Ms Keniry said that the thing she will miss most about Chickering is “the kids.” She says that she gets very lonely during the summer when she is alone with the staff, but when the kids come back in the fall she isn’t lonely any more and really enjoys working with the students. Ms Keniry’s impressions when she first came here were “Chickering was the best school in the whole state”.
Ms Keniry taught in many schools and enjoyed each one for its unique characteristics. Ms Keniry taught the kids and staff of Chickering School many things and was a very thoughtful and considerate Vice Principal.
Ms Keniry left a legacy that will be at the school for generations. The legacy she left was the blue tickets and blue ticket awards. If you do something nice to help a teacher or student they might give you a blue ticket or blue ticket award. All the blue tickets get turned to cash and are used for kids who don’t have enough money to go to camp. On Ms Keniry’s last day at Chickering she 
received a blue reindeer covered in blue tickets that Student Council group A worked on.
We will all miss her very much. We interviewed Ms Keniry about her retirement and thought you might like to hear her answers in her own words. (Please click on the podcast below).
Reported by Seika and Mariam