This month has been full of snow and cold, but kids all around Westfield have been busy. A fourth grade class over at McKinley won national honors for a video project, while some third graders over at Tamaques learned about Westfield’s military. Outside of kids, we’ve got a soup swap coming and over at the high school everyone is trying to wear green today.

Here’s what is going on About Town.

VIDEO KIDS

Taking books to video paid off for Joseph Paradise’s fourth-grade class at McKinley. The class won honorable mention for best east coast region entry in the BookJam Digital Book Report Video Contest this month.

The class worked for three weeks on their video book report of “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing” by Judy Blume. This included making costumes and props, filming and editing the video down to two-and-a-half minutes. For those of you who don’t know, Mr. Paradise is an accomplished videographer who does the video work for the school, including last spring’s retirement videos for former principal Claudia Andreski.

The students even got a mentioned from Judy Blume, who wrote them and said she loved the video report.

Congratulations!

TAMAQUES TROOPS

A group of third grade Bear Scouts from Tamaques School got the chance to tour the Armory earlier this month. Spending time with members of the 102nd Cavalry Squadron Army National Guard, the scouts learned about the troops and the role of the Armory.

The tour was not limited to scouts, but also to scout siblings. Participants included Joe Gamba, Caden Strauss, Dylan Strauss, Maggie McCauley, Colin Murphy, Michale Magnotti, Nicholas Schoen, Will Gamba and Grason Straus.

Great job troops!

WHO LOVES SOUP?

It’s cold out and you know what sounds good, a nice warm bowl of soup. Turns out the First Baptist Church on Elm Street has the same feeling. The church is hosting a soup swap on Saturday night.

Here’s how it works, Bring six one-quart containers of your favorite soup, stew, chili, chowder, bisque or gumbo and leave with six different quarts of soup! The soup swap starts at 7 p.m at the church. If you have any questions call 233-2278 or email firstbaptist.westfield@verizon.net.

Sounds like a great night!

GO GREEN!

Earlier this week, John wrote a great story about WHS senior Katherine Frega and how she is using her successful battle against cancer to inspire the entire high school. This week she has been promoting Teen Cancer Awareness Week at WHS and today is asking everyone at the school to wear green, which is the color of teen cancer. Let’s expand this out and have everyone wear green around Westfield to show our support for Katherine and all of teens battling cancer.