Student Council Halloween Dance

The Halloween Dance will be held on Friday, October 29th in the Junior High Gym. All 7th and 8th grade students are encouraged to attend. The dance will be held directly after school and begin at 3:00p.m., ending at 5:00p.m. Anyone interested in attending must stay after school. Costumes can be brought to school and changed into once the day is through. We look forward to seeing witches, zombies, ghosts, and all of your other creative ideas. The cost of the dance is $6.00. There will be a charitable donation made to the Crystal Lake Animal Shelter. The chaperones look forward to seeing you there!

PG Band Shines at IMEA!!

On Saturday, Oct. 2nd, six of our Advanced and Jazz Band members chose to challenge themselves by auditioning for the Illinois Music Educators’ Association All-District Concert Band and/or Jazz Band. Over 500 students from more than 50 different Chicago-area junior high schools auditioned for the band. We are pleased to announce that two of our students were selected for the Concert Band and three were selected for the Jazz Band. Eighth graders Samuel Click (French horn) and Peter Sokalski (trombone) earned positions in the Concert Band, while eighth graders Aaron Payauys (alto saxophone), Peter Sokalski (trombone), and Raymond Waterson (electric guitar) earned positions in the Jazz Band. Of special noteworthiness is Peter Sokalski being selected for both the Concert Band and the Jazz Band, and Aaron Payauys being selected as the best alto saxophone player that auditioned for the Jazz Band!

All of the students that were selected were sent the music in the mail and will rehearse together all day one Saturday, and then perform a concert in the late afternoon. The Concert Band will rehearse and perform on Saturday, November 6th at Wauconda High School, and the Jazz Band will rehearse and perform on Saturday, November 20th at Lake Zurich High School.

Odyssey of the Mind

Dear Parents –

Does your child like to create, perform, build, invent or want to expand these skills? If YES, the Odyssey of the Mind program is the place for them.

In this venue, your child works with a team of other junior high students to come up with cool, innovative solutions that allow them to stretch their imagination, expand their skills and have a ton of fun.

Teams usually consist of 5-7 students who are interested in working on the same problem. The teams meet about once per week (as needed) to work on their problem and practice spontaneous problem solving, usually at the coach’s house or school. Some problems are more theatrical others technical, but all require creativity and have components of performance, design and construction.

Each team takes its solution to the State Competition held every Spring. If a team places 1^st or 2^nd at State, they receive a bid to the World Competition where teams from around the world (over 25 countries) come to the US to compete.

We started the program at the Elementary School two years ago, and have had teams place first at State and travel to the World competition each year. The experience of the World competition gives our students the added opportunity to not only present their solutions to a larger audience, but also interact with other students from around the world, see their solutions and participate in a variety of activities/events on a college campus.

Odyssey of the Mind or “OM” is a world-wide competitive program sponsored by NASA and Microsoft to help students develop creative thinking and problem-solving skills. Under the guidance of a coach (volunteer parent) students learn to work with each other as a team and take their creativity to new levels. This is an after school program at Prairie Grove.

Does this sound like something your child may enjoy? Then have them attend our Open Meeting on Monday, October 25^th immediately after school in the Junior High Art Room. We will be talking about this year’s problems and executing several Spontaneous Problems to let the kids get a feel for the program.

Please RSVP to Heidi @847.814.7856 or heidi@heidijessup.com by Friday, October 22^nd if you child will attend the Open Meeting on the 25^th so that we can make sure we have enough supplies and space.

Chess Gurus

Beginning on October 14, there will be an independent Chess Coach, working with students in grades K-8, on Thursdays, from October 14-December 16. These sessions will be held in the Junior High Art Room. The cost of this program is $90. Sessions will begin at 3:30, so Jr. High Students will need to leave school and get a ride back for the session. If students are not able to arrange this transportation, please call, or email me, and we can try to work out some supervision here at the school. Please contact Sadhir Guru (630-384-9829) with any other questions.

Upgrades in the Junior High Technology Lab

We are pleased to share with you the improvements we have made in our Technology Lab. This year we have installed 30 new 21'' iMac computers. These computers are a wonderful upgrade and feature much improved processing speed and integrated cameras and microphones for use in interactive multimedia projects.

You can also CLICK HERE to listen to podcasts created right here in our Technology Lab!

Parent-Teacher Conferences

Don't miss out on the chance to meet with all of your child's teachers, on October 7th and 8th. We will be hosting conferences from 10:00-8:00 on Thursday the 7th, and again from 7:30-12:30 on the 8th. We hope to see you all there! In the event that you are unable to attend, you can contact the grade level Team Leader, to make an appointment at another time. There is no need to call in for an appointment; just stop in. 6th and 8th grade teachers will be meeting in the Gymnasium. 7th Grade will be in the library.

How Much Reading Time is Enough?

According to the PG 46 Reading Committee, your child should be following the guidelines below. We know that time can be tight, with the busy schedules that kids keep these days, but be sure to make time for reading every day!

K – one book read to them

1^st – 10-15 minutes (split between reading and being read to)

2^nd – 10-15 minutes

3^rd – 15-20 minutes

4^th – 15- 20 minutes

5^th – 20 -25 minutes

6^th – 30 minutes

7^th – 30 minutes

8^th – 30 minutes