Halloween Festivities
Thank you to our PTO volunteers for making our classroom Halloween parties such a great success. The kids always have a good time. The Prairie Staff and I appreciate all you do for us and our students. Thank you as well to our Positively Prairie Leadership Council for organizing an amazing student assembly. The PPLC students led out the fun and demonstrated great leadership skills in the process. Our sign language club signed fun Halloween songs and all our risers were packed with our choir students leading out fun follow-along songs for the whole school. Thank you to our club sponsors Mrs. Yutakis, Miss McShane, Miss Heuer, and Mrs. Reichert for all your hard work in helping to prepare our student leaders. Thank you also to Mrs. Lehtman and Mr. Nickles for getting everything set up in the gym!
See Our Illinois School Report Card
Through its Illinois School Report Card, the Illinois State Board of Education provides a comprehensive view for the previous year of a public school’s progress in the areas of academics, the school environment, finances, staff qualification and retention, and more.
See the Prairie Elementary School State Report Card for the 18–19 school year. Prairie is designated an Exemplary School. For more info in a downloadable pdf format, see Prairie At-a-Glance.
Specials Class News: News from Art Class
1st Grade
The first graders are drawing family celebrations. We are working on creating images that tell a story, through the use of details.
2nd Grade
The second-grade students looked at Edvard Munch’s The Scream and have been creating expressionistic self-portraits. We talked about how to create a mood or feeling through the use of color and exaggeration.
3rd Grade
The 3rd-grade students are creating landscape collages. Through the use of layering, they are showing depth and making a foreground, middle ground, and background.
4th Grade
The fourth grade is researching famous artists and creating a historical fiction story and illustration. They will be using iMovie to record their story and illustration.
5th Grade
The fifth-grade students are creating parodies or new works of art by combining a famous work of art with something else. They are choosing the style and medium that works best for making their work.
PTO School Store
Our next School Store is on Tuesday, Nov. 12th. Please send small bills ($1.00, $5.00, or $10.00) with your child as it is difficult to make change for bills over $10. We also want to make sure that the change gets home to you and not lost. Thank you for your help.
4th and 5th Grade Orchestra Demonstration Concert
The 4th Grade Orchestra Demonstration Concert will take place next Thursday, November 7th at 7pm at WOODLAWN/COUNTRY MEADOWS. The concert will take place in the large gym at Woodlawn.
4th Grade Orchestra students need to arrive in the Country Meadows Gym in their concert attire by no later than 6:00 pm for tuning and warm-up.
5th Grade Orchestra students need to arrive in the Orchestra Room at Woodlawn/Country Meadows in their concert attire by no later than 6:00pm for tuning and warm-up.
Students must stay for the entire concert. The length will be approximately 30 minutes.
It is going to be a fantastic concert! We look forward to seeing you there!
Cross with the Crossing Guards
If your child is a walker, please be sure to review with him/her that they MUST use the crossing guards to cross the street before and after school. We have two crossing guards. One at Brandywyn and Kingsbridge and the other at Brandywyn and Thompson. Yes, there is a crosswalk the leads to the blacktop path that winds through the neighborhood; however, this is not a safe crossing during after school hours with many, many cars driving around the low-visibility curve. Let's keep everyone safe with this reminder.
IT'S COLD OUTSIDE!
Please remember to send your child to school daily with proper outerwear. Weather permitting, students go outside for recess every day. In winter the temperature and wind chill and weather conditions will be monitored throughout the morning. The weather website and playground will be checked to determine whether conditions are appropriate for children’s outdoor recess. When the temperature or wind chill is below zero degrees, students will be kept inside for recess. We weigh options when the temperature or wind chill is between zero to ten degrees, to determine if we have indoor or outdoor recess, such as how damp it is outside. We do try to allow the children to go outside whenever possible, so please help them to come prepared. Any request for prolonged indoor recess must come with a doctor's note from your child’s physician.
Labeling Your Child’s Belongings
Please label your child’s belongings with their first and last name. We see the following items in our lost and found in abundance: coats, snowpants, mittens, other clothes items , lunchboxes,and waterbottes. We are happy to reunite your child with their items when we can. Items that are not claimed are donated to local area organizations that help families in need. Please be sure to check the lost and found when you come for parent-teacher conferences in November.
Family Reading Night
Family Reading Night is Thursday, November 21st from 6:30-7:45. The theme for this year is SHOWTIME! Families will enjoy quality time reading with their children! We will also have teachers reading aloud with fun activities to go along with each book! We are asking families to arrive on time or even early if you want to purchase books from the book fair.
Please keep in mind that children must be accompanied by an adult at all times. There will be two sessions. Your family will decide which stations to attend. Once a choice is made, we ask that you remain with your child inside the classroom for the entire session. We look forward to seeing you there for this community event to celebrate READING! ~Mrs. Spivack