Spotlight on Campanelli

Imagine walking into a magnet classroom during social studies.  You’d see kids trading paper for index cards, pausing to listen to someone else read the news, standing in lines to buy things.  This is a glimpse of a typical trade day in our colonial simulation.

A typical trade day would look something like this:  students would gather in groups, their “family” groups in the simulation, and set up a sign that stated a profession.  Then, trade would start.  People with paper “shillings” (currency used in colonial times) would buy things they needed and wanted.  Everything bought and sold was drawn on index cards.

Of course, learning took place as well.  Every day, a town crier would ring a bell and state the news of the day, usually an important event in real colonial times.  Then “families” would buy a newspaper from the printers.  The newspaper gave a more in depth look on the current event.

In the first week of the simulation, it was mostly trade.  In the next few weeks, we (as the colonists) got some taxes, and some important historical events happened, like the French and Indian War.  When the Townshend Acts (taxes on tea, oil, paper, etc.) were passed, and even before that, I think we finally started to realize why the colonists were upset with England, why they did the Boston Tea Party (which we reenacted).  After the Boston Tea Party, we did most of our learning in our homerooms.  We acted out the First and Second Continental Congresses, and we acted out the Battles of Lexington and Concord.  We also studied a pamphlet written in 1776, and we are preparing for a debate about whether or not we should declare independence.

That’s all we have done for now, but I can’t wait to see where the simulation takes us next!

My personal opinion is that simulations like this one are a lot of fun, but also give us a great understanding of not only what the colonists did, but what they felt.  CaraMia says, “The colonial unit gave me a new appreciation for the everyday things we have today.”  Ashish says, “There are so many people, jobs, and objects to look at when you go around the colonial towns.”  Allison told me, “I liked that we got to trade with people and actually simulate what it was like in colonial life.”

In conclusion, I think that I can say the colonial simulation has been a lot of fun.  I can’t wait to see what happens next!

-          submitted by Olivia

Spotlight on Campanelli

Our field trip to the Spring Valley
Nature Center

By the students in room 114

Have you ever been to the Spring Valley Nature Center?  Well, the first and second grade students in Mrs. Nowak’s class went there on a field trip on Monday January 9^th.

First, we played the deer game all together as a group.  6 students were picked to be deer, while everyone else in the group stood across from them.  With our backs turned away from each other, everyone would make a sign with our hands that represented shelter, water or food.  Then, the 6 students who were picked to be deer would run to find a matching partner.  Once the deer found a person with the matching sign, both people would become deer.  We played this game to help us learn what living things need to survive.

Then, we split into groups and went on a nature hike.  We saw a gall.  A gall is a growth on a woodland plant that acts as both a food source and shelter for the insect that makes it.  During our hike we visited 3 types of habitats: the wetlands, the woodlands and the prairie.  While visiting the different habitats we saw animal fur, a rabbit skull, a beaver dam, feathers, a coyote den, animal footprints, and scat.  (We won’t tell you what that is.)

Have you ever been to the Spring Valley Nature Center?  Well, if you haven’t, you should go!

Spotlight on Campanelli

The Villa

By Rachel, Mitchell, and Brandon (from Mrs. LeVerso’s class)

Hello!  We are a few students from Mrs. LeVerso’s class.  For the past four years we have been working on a project.  It is to remember elderly residents at Addolorata Villa inWheeling, IL. at holiday times; Halloween, Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. We make a card that’s placed at their table.  Every resident on the Assisted Living side of the Villa gets one.  They think our projects are marvelous!  We love it too!