May 2, 2011

4th Grade Cities

Recently, Big Hollow fourth grade students had an opportunity to participate in an exciting cities project that has been done annual for about 9 years. Last year, as third graders the students visited the cities as tourists, and have been looking forward to establishing their own cities since.

This year there were 8 cities, Christensen Falls, Las Axelson, S.S. Silverblatt, Brockford, Nacksville, Keenada, Lucago, and Royal Woods. Each of these cities had a working government complete with an elected Mayor, appointed vice mayor and city council. They also had a bank, police and fire officials, a sanitation engineer, doctor, and a pharmacist. Some of the cities had specials jobs as well such as a meteorologist and city reporter. The members of the city all had to make a product or design a service for the five days of operation, while no food items were allowed the teachers encouraged creativity. Each student’s desk was transformed into their place of business by creating an eye catching sign in art class with the guidance of Mrs. Vivian Sekel. City council meetings were held to approve of businesses, pay for a business license, pay fines and report and solve problems that rose during simulation.

This project gives students a realistic snapshot of our society. The primary goal of the cities project is to teach students city government and how any economy works. Not only did each student have an occupation but they all maintained a bank account with money earned from their base salary and a profit from their business. Students also had to pay taxes and rent, had medical insurance cards and prescriptions as well as business insurance policies. As in life, unexpected situations arose when students received chance cards where they could either win or lose money. “Our students learn important social studies and life concepts and have fun in the process! It is an experience they never forget!” said fourth grade teacher Mrs. Andrea Woods.

May 3, 2011

FBI Internet Safety Program and Teacher Appreciation Week

            Big Hollow students have been participating in the FBI Safe Online Internet Surfing Challenge (FBI-SOS) throughout the year. The program was designed by the FBI and is used as a way to teach students about internet citizenship and safety. The FBI-SOS program is comprised of a pre-quiz, online scavenger hunt, and a post quiz. The results of the post quiz are posted online and ranked among other participating schools throughout the United States. Big Hollow students have been doing an outstanding job and are one of the top in the nation. For the month of April, one of Big Hollow’s sixth grade students took 1st place out of all participating schools participating in the FBI-SOS program. The entire sixth grade took 2nd place in the nation and 1st place in Illinois. To view all of the stats, learn more about the program, and follow Big Hollow’s progress visit in May, http://www.fbi-sos.org/index.cfm?Page=School_Results.
Don’t forget that great programs like FBI-SOS would not be successful without our great teachers. With that being said, May 2-6 is Teacher Appreciation Week. Each year the PTO takes time to let the teachers of Big Hollow know that their dedication and efforts do not go unnoticed. Throughout the week teachers the PTO will be showing the teachers they care through thoughtful gestures such as breakfast to start their day. This week, take a moment to thank the teachers at Big Hollow for amazing things they do in the lives of their students!

May 5, 2011

Book Fair

Next week from Monday, May 9 to Friday, May 13 the PTO Book Fair will be open for business. This year’s Book Fair is carnival themed. Throughout the week anyone who makes a book purchase will receive tickets to use during Wednesday night’s family night event. Wednesday night’s event will have balloons, face painting, games, concessions and other carnival fun. The Book Fair is located at the Big Hollow Primary School; hours of operation are listed below.

Friday – Teacher Preview 3:00pm – 9:00am
Monday – 9:00am – 4:30pm
Tuesday – 9:00am – 3:30pm
Wednesday – 9:00am – 3:30pm           Family Night – 5:00pm – 8:00pm
Thursday – 9:00am – 4:30pm
Friday – 9:00am – 12:00pm

May 9, 2011

Literature Festival

This Tuesday, May 10 from 6:30-8:00pm in the Middle School gym, the Big Hollow Middle School high reading classes will be hosting this year’s Literature Festival: Stroll Down Hollywood Boulevard. This will be the second annual festival, last year’s event was a Folklore Festival and this year the students chose the theme, Stroll Down Hollywood Boulevard.

Each student chose a book to read that has also been turned into a movie. After reading the book and watching the movie, they compared and contrasted the two. Students also conducted research on the internet to learn more about both the movie and book. In preparation for the festival, students have put together a project board, a report, an artifact, and 6th and 7th grade students will be dressing up to represent something from their book or movie. They also created movie posters to decorate the school gym for the event.

Project ACES

            Last week Big Hollow students had an opportunity to participate in the 23rd Annual Project ACES (All Children Exercise Simultaneously). This is the 4th year Big Hollow has taken part in the event which tries to motivate kids everywhere to move and understand the importance of daily activity. Physical Education teacher Len Saunders created the event in 1989 as a way to get children to exercise in an educational, non-competitive, motivating and fun way. Today, millions of children from all 50 states and over 50 countries participate in Project ACES each May.

This year, Big Hollow P.E. teachers organized a 20-25 minute hike around the perimeter of the school property for Project ACES. The hike took students through the nature center and around other areas of the school campus they have never had the opportunity to see. The weather was great on the day of the event and everyone who participated had a great time. For more information on Project ACES, visit http://www.lensaunders.com/aces/aces.html

May 24, 2011

DARE Walk-A-Thon

On Friday, June 3 from 1:15-2:30pm the Big Hollow 5th grade students will be participating in the DARE Walk-A-Thon. This will be the second year the school has had a walk-a-thon to help raise money for the DARE program provided by the Round Lake Police Department that helps students learn the skills needed to avoid involvement with drugs, gangs, and violence. This year, students will receive a raffle ticket for every $10 they raise. These raffle tickets will be drawn the day of the walk-a-ton for fun prizes. As a way to keep the event exciting there will be different fun laps such as linking up with a buddy and skipping instead of walking. Students really enjoyed the DARE program and are excited to have an opportunity to help pay for it.

Hoops for Hearts Update