Nassau: Students celebrate Chinese New Year

Students reveled in indoor parades and celebratory feasts and delved into cultural studies to ring in the Chinese New Year.

In Carle Place, Cherry Lane Elementary School kindergartners welcomed the Year of the Horse -- Chinese year 4712, which began Jan. 31 -- with a hallway parade that included ribbon dancers, traditional costumes and a student-made dragon to "scare off bad luck," school officials said. Children also tasted traditional foods of the culture such as fried rice and dumplings.

"We like to celebrate diversity here," said Mary McDermott, the event's coordinator. "The students are just delighted by this every year and remember it for many years to come."

In Sea Cliff, the elementary school's third-graders presented facts about China to each grade level during a parade that was the culmination of a monthlong interdisciplinary unit on the country. They also compared the culture's lion and dragon dances and discussed similarities and differences between celebrations of Chinese New Year and the Carnival of Brazil.

In Syosset, Village Elementary School's Village Ensemble performed traditional Chinese songs, including "Gong Xi Gong Xi," during lunch periods to entertain classmates enjoying chicken with broccoli.

In Deer Park, May Moore Primary School first-graders prepared for their school's celebratory parade by reading books about the holiday, such as Karen Chinn's "Sam and the Lucky Money."

"Our Chinese New Year parade is a great way to celebrate a different culture and learn about the customs and traditions of many of our students," principal Alicia Konecny said.

PLAINEDGE

Hang Up and Drive

Plainedge High School students were reminded recently of the importance of not using cellphones while driving, during a visit from Jacy Good of White Plains, N.Y., who is co-founder of the campaign "Hang Up and Drive."

Good was partially paralyzed and her parents were killed by a tractor-trailer that swerved to avoid hitting a distracted driver in 2008.

"There's no safe way to use a phone and drive," Good said.

COUNTYWIDE

Souper Bowls

Local schools recently used the NFL's championship game as a tool to aid local homeless people by hosting "Souper Bowl" events in conjunction with Super Bowl XLVIII.

In Massapequa, McKenna Elementary School collected 1,600 cans of soup for a local pantry through a campaign in which classes competed to see which could collect the most. Melanie Gaulrapp's fifth-graders won with about 200 cans.

In Seaford, Seaford Manor Elementary School collected 600 cans for the pantry at St. William the Abbot Church in Seaford. The names of donors were displayed on paper footballs.

In Brookville, Long Island Lutheran Middle/High School sold soup to raise money for the school's meal-packing campaign for area pantries in April.

ISLANDWIDE

LEGO League qualifiers

More than 100 teams from Long Island elementary and middle schools competed earlier this month in the FIRST LEGO League Qualifying Tournament, held at Central Islip High School.

This year's challenge, titled Nature's Fury, asked students to build and program LEGO robots that could accomplish natural-disaster missions. FIRST is an acronym -- For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology.

Local winning teams and their awards were: Team No. 8739 Massapequa Robo Chiefs, Alliance Team No. 1 Award; Team No. 8740 Berner Bison Bots of Massapequa, Alliance Team No. 2 Award; Team No. 4403 LEGO Chicks/Girl Scouts of Nassau County, Mechanical Design Award; Team No. 6294 Crazy Creators of Garden City, Programming and Robot Performance first-place awards; Team No. 3181 Floral Park Brickheads, Robot Performance first place and Champion's Award second place; Team No. 4397 Digital Darlings/Girl Scouts of Nassau County, Programming Award; Team No. 2127 Gizmos of Rockville Centre, Strategy and Innovation and Robot Performance second-place awards; Team No. 4579 Trojan Army Robotics of Garden City, Robot Performance first-place award; Team No. 4404 Merrick Masters, Research Award; Team No. 3805 WMS Bulldogs of Hewlett and Team No. 4406 Smart Cookies/Girl Scouts of Nassau County, Presentation Award; Team No. 17031 South Side Middle School of Rockville Centre, Teamwork Award; Team No. 10629 Rockin' Robotics of Garden City, Judges Award No. 2; Team No. 7488 Thunder Chickens of Garden City, Champion's Award first place; Team No. 5439 Robotic Rebels of Stewart Manor, Champion's Award second place.

Most of the award winners are eligible to compete next month in the FIRST Championship Tournament, to be held at Longwood High School in Middle Island.