Welcome! Learn About our Neighborhood and Our City

Welcome!  We are excited to write the first post to our partners at Purwanchal Vidyamandir in Kolkata, India.  We are a 5th grade class in Chicago, Illinois USA.  Let us tell you a bit about us.

Greetings!

Hello virtual pen pals! We are extremely excited to work with you and will have fun making your acquaintances! In the course of this year, we would like to learn about your Indian culture, school, hobbies, and neighborhood. More specifically, what you are leaning in school, places you like to go in your neighborhood, what activities you do,what sports you play, what holidays you, celebrate and what your names are. This is the first time any of us have blogged. We are so happy to be working with your class and we are excited to blog with you. We will begin telling your about our city and our neighborhood. Written By: Daniel, Luca, Isabel, Jimi, and Ashley

About Our Neighborhood

Most of our class lives in Northcenter Chicago. Chicago is very is diverse, we have people from all over the world, and we have a lot of genders including LGBT*. We have everything from ice cream shops to toy shops and restaurants, and much more. Some of us also live farther away from school like in Glenwood, and Belmont Cragin which are other neighborhoods. We also have restaurants, bookstores and gyms where you can work out, and parks where you can play. We have plenty of places for food like fast food places, restaurants, supermarkets and more, so we have lots of options for food. We have food from all over the world. They come from Greece, Thailand, Asia, South America, Mexico and many other places. Our community has plenty of schools and we are one of them (Coonley). Our community is awesome! Lake Michigan is a body of water that is next to our community where we can go to the beach to swim as a fun activity

*** LGBTQ stands for L is lesbian G is gay B is bisexual and T is transgender Q is queer. Gay means a boy likes boy, and lesbian means girl likes girl, Bisexual means boy likes girl or boy, and transgender means you changed genders

Chris B. 10 years old     

Arseniy T. 10 years old

Ben.s 10 years old  

Elliott W. 10 years old

About Our City

We live in Chicago, Illinois. Illinois is one state of 50 in the United States. Our city is made up of 2.736 million people. It has 6 major sports teams, such as the Chicago Cubs (a baseball team), the Chicago White Sox (also a baseball team), the Chicago Bulls (a basketball team), The Chicago Blackhawks (a hockey team), The Chicago Bears (a football team), and The Chicago Fire (a soccer/futball team). Chicago has 77 communities. It also has the biggest water filtration plant in the world. We dye the Chicago River green on St. Patrick's day! (St. Patrick’s day is an Irish holiday.) We have a baseball stadium called Wrigley Field. Wrigley field is used for the Chicago Cubs.

Chicago has a very tall building named the Willis tower (originally named The Sears Tower.) It used to be the tallest building in the world, but now is only the 14th tallest building in the world. It stands at 441.8 meters and 108 floors. Chicago also has other cool places, including the John Hancock building and the famous Bean. It is a big mirror statue that looks like a giant bean. We are famous for our food (Deep dish pizza* and the Chicago style hot dog**). In 1871 a terrible fire destroyed most of Chicago. One of the most famous items that survived the fire is the Chicago Water Tower. Legend has it that a cow kicked over a lantern to start the fire.   

This is the flag of our city. Each star on the Chicago flag is shown by an achievement or a famous thing that happened in Chicago. The first star represents Fort Dearborn. Fort Dearborn is a fort where Chicago was first made. The second star represents the Chicago Fire. The third star signifies the Columbus Expedition. It was an event in 1893 showing off new inventions. The fourth star stands for The Century of Progress Exposition, which a World's Fair. The blue stripes represent each of the rivers that flow through our city, Chicago!  The Chicago flag:

*Deep dish pizza is regular pizza only with a thick crust.

**A Chicago style hot dog has sport peppers, yellow mustard, white onions, a dill pickle spear, tomatoes, celery salt, sweet pickle relish  

Written by: Augie age 10, Keegan age 10, Charlotte age 10 (almost 11), Rahul age 10, and Carlos age 10

What would you like to know about our neighborhood or our city? What can you tell us about yours?

Below is our Padlet board. On it you can write a comment, add a picture or video to answer the prompt at the top. We hope to learn many things about you soon!