ALLENTOWN: Pupils and dads enjoy a Guys Night Out

By David Kilby, Special Writer
   ALLENTOWN — Newell Elementary School students, parents and guardians took advantage of the down time in the winter season with a Guys Night Out, giving children a chance to spend some quality time with their fathers, grandfathers or uncles while reading or playing games with them.
   The event packed the library and cafeteria, demonstrating how great of an idea this event was.
   ”The idea is to try to have parents demonstrate to their kids the value of being together, and be models of being readers,” said Dr. Richard Fitzpatrick, superintendent of Upper Freehold Regional School District. He added that it’s good for parents to teach their children to be interested in learning, and the best way to teach them is by being role models.
   ”At home fathers have a lot of distractions. Coming here is a perfect spot,” he said.
   Kimee Moore, librarian of Newell Elementary School and host of the event, said there’s a great deal of research in academic journals, such as School Library Journal, showing how much of an impact the father, or male guardian, has on a child’s social and academic success.
   She said the Guy’s Night Out was open to dads, granddads, uncles, brothers, or whomever served as a guardian or role model in the child’s life.
   ”This is our second annual Guy’s Night Out,” she said. “We had such a response last year we wanted to do it this year, and it’s worked out well.”
   Last year the night out involved a scavenger hunt and reading, but this year the school had the fathers or guardians read to the children and join them in games like “Mad Libs,” and telling jokes.
   The reading took place in the library while games were played in the cafeteria.In the cafeteria, the fathers were challenged in a game where they had to guess their child’s favorite color or sports team, and the students did their best in pronouncing tongue twisters and filling out a “Mad Lib” story about a trip to the Grand Canyon.
   The students also had the chance to write about why their father or guardian is special to them.
   Over 200 guys and students gathered for the night out. Officially, Ms. Moore said 127 students in kindergarten through fifth grade and 92 guys responded to the invitation to the event.
   To help with such a large crowd, Ms. Moore had volunteers assist, such as Debbie McCormick, Evie Bruno, Maresa Strahley, and Stephanie Rose, who come in weekly to help Ms. Moore at the library.
   Principal Kelly Huggins said the purpose of the Guys Night Out event is to have “a special night set aside for children to come with their fathers, grandfathers, or uncles, to share favorite stories and their love of literature. It’s also an opportunity for them to spend some quality time sitting, talking, conversing.”
   ”It’s a very good idea to have the fathers experience what their children get to experience every day,” said Shawn Murray of Upper Freehold, father of Newell Elementary student Andie. “It’s good to see the library she goes to. Now I know where she brings all of the books home from.”
   ”I like reading books and I like the jokes, and I like the ‘Mad Libs’,” Andie said.
   It was easy to tell that the students were enjoying hearing their fathers or guardians tell jokes like, “What’s the longest word in the world? ‘Smiles because there’s a mile from one ‘s’ to the other.”
   Reading the “Mad Lib” story he completed with his son, Christopher, Jaime Egan said the Grand Canyon is “shaped like a huge ‘bowl’. Some people say it was formed when a giant ‘frankfurter’ crashed into the earth ‘1,002’ years ago. We rode down the canyon on the back of some ‘boring’ mules.”
   Mr. Egan, a teacher in North Brunswick, said his son had been telling him about “Father and son night out” for weeks.
   ”It’s good to bring parents in to the school,” he said. “They’re pretty good at using the school as a sort of community center in this town. It’s good to get the parents involved in the school in stuff that’s fun.”