by Kelly Smith | May 22, 2018 |
Today we were able to visit Rollins Savanna and go on a bird walk with some friends from the Audubon Society of Lake County. We went with Ms. Johnson’s class and met Mr. Troy and some other volunteers from the Audubon Society, and went on a walk around the...
by Kelly Smith | May 15, 2018 |
…It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s a glider being launched in math class?!? One of the experiments we are doing in math during this last unit is creating gliders and seeing how far they will go after we launch them. We have created two...
by Kelly Smith | May 10, 2018 |
This week we had another visit from Mr. Troy of the Lake County Audubon Society. He took us on a bird count walk around the school campus to see what types of birds we could find. We found a lot of robins this time around. We also found some mourning doves, saw...
by Kelly Smith | May 10, 2018 |
This Monday, we had a field trip to Old School Forest Preserve in Libertyville. This was a great opportunity to team up with Mr. Flinn in P.E. to go outside for fitness…and to get some bird watching in! We started the day by making our way by bus to the...
by Kelly Smith | May 3, 2018 |
There have been a lot of changes going on in the classroom with all of the animals we are studying! Our chicks started to hatch on Monday. We have had 11 chicks hatch overall. It was great to see them, and they were so cute! Each student was able to have their...
by Kelly Smith | May 3, 2018 |
Our PCCS Makes a Difference Committee is organizing a one day Change for Change campaign to raise money for the Benkadi project that benefits the people of Guinea in Africa. This Change for Change campaign will take place on Thursday, May 17th! We will have milk jugs...
by Kelly Smith | Apr 26, 2018 |
On Wednesday this week, we had Mr. Troy from the local chapter of the Audubon Society to come and do a lesson with us. He basically wanted to know the answers to three different questions: What do you know about birds? What birds do you know about? What do you want...
by Kelly Smith | Apr 26, 2018 |
This Tuesday, we were able to go out with our Book Buddies near the end of the day. They told us about a project called “Kindness Stones” that they learned about during Earth Week. The project’s mission is states they believe that “One...
by Kelly Smith | Apr 10, 2018 |
This week, we are having an extension of Peace Week where we are really trying to focus in on celebrating our unique abilities. We are coming at this though our morning meetings and some special lessons throughout the week this week. For example, the morning...
by Kelly Smith | Apr 6, 2018 |
This week, we read another book from Brad Meltzer’s Ordinary People Change the World series – I am Abraham Lincoln. We learned from President Lincoln that we should speak up for others. We saw him do this when he came across some boys putting hot coals...
by Kelly Smith | Apr 5, 2018 |
The first and second grade band is hosting a Family Math Night on April 11th. To find out more about it, please click HERE to see the flyer.
by Kelly Smith | Mar 23, 2018 |
This last Thursday, March 22, 2018 was World Water Day. This is a day where people all around the world take time to learn about the importance of water, the water cycle, and the how and why we should conserve water. We had several different activities scattered...
by Kelly Smith | Mar 21, 2018 |
The PCCS Green Team has just published it’s latest Green Gazette! In it, you will find some information about an herb growing class they are holding on April 4th, how to build a rain barrel, how to make some green cleaners for your house, and more! Please...
by Kelly Smith | Mar 15, 2018 |
This week, the class was introduced to a new Brad Meltzer book – I am Sacagawea. In this book, we find that Sacagawea was the only teenager girl, only mother, and only Native American on the Lewis and Clark expedition. We learned that many think she was a...
by Kelly Smith | Mar 6, 2018 |
Today was our Green Challenge Assembly for March! We were able to sit with our Book Buddies and learn a lot about how water is used in everyday life. For example, did you know it takes over 1,000 gallons of water to go through the process of making a pair of jeans? ...
by Kelly Smith | Feb 21, 2018 |
Over the course of the last few weeks, we have been exploring the good habits readers have when they are reading. All of them help us with building our comprehension skills…and also make sure we are reading as smoothly and accurately as we can. The habits we...
by Kelly Smith | Feb 15, 2018 |
The PCCS Green Team has published a winter edition of the Green Gazette. In it, you can find some information on the events they have hosted and some winter fun things to do in nature. Click HERE to see it!
by Kelly Smith | Feb 13, 2018 |
This last Monday, we had an assembly to learn about and celebrate Lunar New Year. We had a group from the Chicago Chinese Cultural Center to perform a lion dance, tell us a little about the celebration, and answer some questions. We learned the dance was thousands...
by Kelly Smith | Feb 8, 2018 |
This Tuesday, we had a Green Challenge Assembly. For the assembly, we took part in a game show all about what we can do to conserve electricity. Through the game show questions, we were able to learn many different facts about the use of electricity and how to...
by Kelly Smith | Feb 2, 2018 |
Peace week has been going strong! On Wednesday, we began to look at how we could overcome barriers to peace. To do this, we looked at someone who helped others overcome barriers – Harriet Tubman. We read I am Harriet Tubman by Brad Meltzer and discussed...
by Kelly Smith | Jan 30, 2018 |
This week is Peace Week at PCCS, and there is a lot going on! Please read on to see what we have been doing these first two days of Peace Week. On Monday, the students came into the classroom to find that the morning question was – What is peace? For some...
by Kelly Smith | Jan 26, 2018 |
Next week is Peace Week at PCCS. Both of the blog entries from next week will be giving the specifics of what we have been doing, but I wanted to take this time to give you a basic outline of the week. Each day will have a question the students will be exploring and...
by Kelly Smith | Jan 23, 2018 |
Last week, we reviewed and expanded what it is like to work together as reading partners. We remembered the lesson from Martin Luther King, Jr. that we should work with others along with what we thought would be helpful and not helpful when working with others. We...
by Kelly Smith | Jan 19, 2018 |
Next week, we will be having School Choice week. It will be celebrating that we have a choice to come to Prairie Crossing Charter School. There will be an assembly and a door decoration contest we will be taking part in. There will also be a Spirit Week next week! ...
by Kelly Smith | Dec 15, 2017 |
As you have seen in the homework lately, we have been working a lot with number lines in class. Probably the most challenging form of the number line the students have encountered is the open number line. This number line has the students make use of their number...
by Kelly Smith | Dec 12, 2017 |
It’s hard to believe that there are only a few days left until December 22nd. That Friday is going to be jam-packed with a lot of different activities, so I wanted to remind you about all that is going on! From 8:30 – 9:30 will be the Winter Sing. The...
by Kelly Smith | Dec 8, 2017 |
The annual tradition of the Winter Sing is happening on December 22nd! It will start at 8:30 in the Gaylord Nelson Gym. Come and join us as the different grade-bands sing songs for us and we get to sing songs together! You can see all the information here: Winter...
by Kelly Smith | Dec 6, 2017 |
The PCCS Green Team has another great event coming up in December – an Owl Prowl! The owl prowl is a great time to come, learn about what an owl prowl is and about owls in general. It will be happening on Tuesday, December 19th and will run from 5:30 –...
by Kelly Smith | Dec 5, 2017 |
We had a couple of times with our book buddies both yesterday and today! Yesterday, we went on a walk with our book buddies to Prairie Smoke Pond. They had been studying all about John Muir and how he explored nature. They wanted to share some of what they learned...
by Kelly Smith | Dec 1, 2017 |
This past Thursday, we had Craig and Alvin come to visit. Many of our first graders are now able to say that they have held the worlds fastest flying animal in their hands! We talked about different kinds of falcons and owls, along with what they eat and their...
by Kelly Smith | Nov 28, 2017 |
Today, we had the opportunity to go on a field trip to Ryerson Woods! Both our class and Ms. Johnson’s class went today. Mrs. Jeffery’s and Mrs. Barnett’s classes will be going next week. After lunch and recess, we took the bus to the Brushwood...
by Kelly Smith | Nov 21, 2017 |
It’s been a very short week, but we have still worked hard on our building of Cooltopia. We have been creating a list of stores and buildings we may need in Cooltopia to have it function as a town. The students then helped narrow this list down to 13 buildings...
by Kelly Smith | Nov 17, 2017 |
In our last blog post, we talked about how Cooltopia was founded and named. Today, we are going to look a little at how we have started to plan Cooltopia. During our reading mini-lessons, we have started to read Curious George books. Not only have we started to look...
by Kelly Smith | Nov 14, 2017 |
This week, we started a new unit – Kid Town! In this unit of study, the students learn through a simulation what kind of things it takes to make a town function and run. This week, we are focusing on two main concepts – maps and the concept of needs and...
by Kelly Smith | Nov 9, 2017 |
We had a very special lesson on bird beaks and bills and how they are designed to get food in different ways. To do this, we had four different stations: Vase Station – We had water in tall narrow vases. The students had to see which worked better to get...
by Kelly Smith | Nov 8, 2017 |
Tuesday, we had our Green Challenge Assembly for November: Don’t Trash, Donate! The Green Challenge Team kicked of the event by explaining what the Holiday Bazaar is and going over what can be donated (video games, jewelery, books, toys, etc.) and what cannot be...
by Kelly Smith | Oct 31, 2017 |
We have done several things over the last three days to continue our exploration into what we can do to make sure bullying does not happen in our classroom or in our school. We finished up our posters to go with our value of “Make Peace” that we learned...
by Kelly Smith | Oct 24, 2017 |
This week, PCCS is having an Anti-Bullying week where we focus on what bullying is and how we can prevent it in our classroom and throughout the school. Both blog entries this week will be about what we have been doing in the classroom. Today’s entry will be...
by Kelly Smith | Oct 20, 2017 |
In the midst of our study of birds, we are also starting to look at the life cycles of two different living things – meal worms and plants. For the meal worms, we have started by just making our initial observations into what they look like. We found that...
by Kelly Smith | Oct 17, 2017 |
Can first graders put together and cook a Moroccan root vegetable stew? Yes they can…with all of your help! Thank you again for all the help, ingredients, and materials that were sent in. We started the day by having a shortened Morning Meeting time and then...
by Kelly Smith | Oct 11, 2017 |
Last Thursday, we went on our first field trip. We went to McDonald Woods! McDonald Woods is a very unique forest preserve because it has three distinct habitats the students can walk through and observe. Those habitats are wetland, forest, and prairie! We walked...
by Kelly Smith | Oct 10, 2017 |
This past week, we were able to have our first meeting with our Buddy Class – Mrs. Neil’s Class! Traditionally, this has been called a Book Buddy class, but we are looking to expand it and make it a lot more than that over the course of the next year....
by Kelly Smith | Oct 3, 2017 |
Here is an opportunity our Multicultural Parent Advisory Council is putting together for November. Hope to see you there! This fall the Multicultural Parent Advisory Council would like to take families on a tour of the world. The evening will explore several...
by Kelly Smith | Sep 29, 2017 |
There are a lot of things we do differently in school than when I was in first grade. One of these things is Writing Workshop. I do not know about you, but there was a lot of sentence writing, sentence diagramming and the like when I was in early elementary school....
by Kelly Smith | Sep 27, 2017 |
You may have heard from your student that they were able to take part in work places during math time, or that work places is their favorite part of math. So what are work places? What do they look like, and what is their purpose? Work places are structured games...
by Kelly Smith | Sep 21, 2017 |
Today we had another visit from Mr. Craig Hendee and Alvin the Peregrine falcon. This time, they helped us explore the different types of feathers we might find on a bird. We were able to look at feathers from an eagle owl, a peregrine falcon, a Harris’s hawk,...
by Kelly Smith | Sep 15, 2017 |
In the last blog entry, we talked about what the Daily 5 is and the philosophy behind it’s implementation. We also took a look at the three options that deal mainly with reading – Read to Self, Read to Someone, and Listen to Reading. Today we are going to...
by Kelly Smith | Sep 12, 2017 |
You have probably heard your student come home and say something about our Daily 5 time. You may be wondering what it is…and what it is not. This week’s posts will focus in on what it is, how we use it, and why we use it. Today, we are going to focus in...
by Kelly Smith | Sep 11, 2017 |
Just like in math, we have benchmark assessments for reading at every grade level. In first grade, we use two tools to check in on the students’ development in early literacy – AIMS Web Fountas and Pinnell. The AIMS Web portion of the benchmarking process...
by Kelly Smith | Sep 5, 2017 |
Throughout the year we give benchmark assessments to the students to see where they are at that time when it comes to some of the concepts they are exploring. These usually happen within the first month of school, the first couple of weeks after winter vacation, and...
by Kelly Smith | Aug 31, 2017 |
One of the new things you will be seeing with the Bridges math program is Number Corner. There is a lot of learning that goes on in this part of the program. A lot of it is geared to discussing math in different ways. Each month will have a different theme to the...
by Kelly Smith | Aug 29, 2017 |
One week from today on September 5th, the Comstock building (grades K – 4) will be holding their annual curriculum night. This is a time for parents to come and hear a little bit about what is going to be going on throughout the year in the first and second...
by Kelly Smith | Aug 25, 2017 |
Today’s post is all about the books we are using to explore the different values we can show to be great classmates and do our best in and out of school – the Ordinary People Change the World series. This is a series of biographies that are written by...
by Kelly Smith | Aug 22, 2017 |
One of the new things first graders experience here at PCCS is Solo Spots. You may be wondering what exactly Solo Spots are. That is what this blog entry is all about. Solo Spots are a time for the student to go out and enjoy nature as well as honing their...
