Have a safe and happy holiday. Read and complete your holiday reading log over the break. Don't forget that the top readers in our class will receive a prize!
I look forward to seeing you all again in 2011! See you on January 4!
Feel free to write a post on our blog and tell us all about your holiday break!
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Friday, December 10, 2010
Newsletter-December 13, 2010
Hi,
Your children are wonderful! We are working so hard to finish our essay writing. The format of this genre has been a little challenging for some. They created thesis statements and reasons to support that thesis. Then wrote small moment stories as examples of each reason. The idea that those three small moment stories are put together into a five part essay (introduction, reason 1 with story, reason 2 with story, and reason three with story, conclusion) was a bit challenging but they are getting it. I was hoping to have these essays complete for the children to read at our Author's Celebration on Monday afternoon. Some got very close but we ran out of time to work on them on Monday due to our pen pal trip. We will continue to revise and edit our essays and will have them done by the end of the week. They are really coming along nicely.
Lots of compliments were given today during our Pen Pal trip. We unexpectedly heard a choir concert which was a bit longer than we thought it might be. It was very good but a little long. The kids sat quietly and respectfully for the entire concert. Then we played a present passing game. Everyone has a wrapped present. I read a story and whenever they heard the word "right" they passed their present to the right. If they heard "left" they passed it to the left. This continues for quite a while and then they get to open the present in the end! We will be doing this game at our holiday party but with a different story. We then read aloud our pen pal book using the microphone. Every child read the page that they wrote. The pen pals enjoyed hearing what was important about each of them. Next we interviewed them a little about holidays and played with tree and candy cane bubble necklaces. Bubbles were very fun for all. We will be doing more bubbles in the future. It was a great visit. Our next visit is on Friday, January 14. The pen pals will be coming to our school.
Author's Celebration
Thank you to the parents who were able to come to our Author's Celebration today. We heard some wonderful stories. The children reread their published writing from this year and chose one to read aloud. The others offered compliments to the author. Our writing is getting longer and we had lots of great comments so we ran out of time and had to go home. Those who didn't get to read today will read tomorrow.
Reading
We are continuing to work on comprehension skills using social studies material. We are using graphic organizers to help us focus our learning, ask questions, and monitor our comprehension as we read.
Writing
Awesome work on essays. We will be finishing our editing and revising this week.
Math
Fractions will be our focus this week. We will continue to work on fractions, multiplication, and division in problem solving when we return in January.
Social Studies
We are continuing to learn about Texas History. We learned about missions and early towns. We will be learning more about Stephen F. Austin and the Old Three Hundred this week. We will be learning about the Texas Revolution when we return.
Science
We are beginning to plan for our science fair projects. Your child will bring home a paper on Tuesday that needs to be filled out and returned on Thursday, Dec. 16. We will be talking about this more in class but the science project will be done at home. Here is a great website to find possible experiments. http://www.sciencebuddies.org/
Dates to remember:
Yearbook Orders due on December 15
Science Project Idea Paper due on December 16
Holiday Party-December 17 at 1:45
January 4-Return to class
January 28-Marathon Kids forms due
Have a wonderful holiday, if I don't get to see you. Thank you for sharing your children with me. Let me know if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Your children are wonderful! We are working so hard to finish our essay writing. The format of this genre has been a little challenging for some. They created thesis statements and reasons to support that thesis. Then wrote small moment stories as examples of each reason. The idea that those three small moment stories are put together into a five part essay (introduction, reason 1 with story, reason 2 with story, and reason three with story, conclusion) was a bit challenging but they are getting it. I was hoping to have these essays complete for the children to read at our Author's Celebration on Monday afternoon. Some got very close but we ran out of time to work on them on Monday due to our pen pal trip. We will continue to revise and edit our essays and will have them done by the end of the week. They are really coming along nicely.
Lots of compliments were given today during our Pen Pal trip. We unexpectedly heard a choir concert which was a bit longer than we thought it might be. It was very good but a little long. The kids sat quietly and respectfully for the entire concert. Then we played a present passing game. Everyone has a wrapped present. I read a story and whenever they heard the word "right" they passed their present to the right. If they heard "left" they passed it to the left. This continues for quite a while and then they get to open the present in the end! We will be doing this game at our holiday party but with a different story. We then read aloud our pen pal book using the microphone. Every child read the page that they wrote. The pen pals enjoyed hearing what was important about each of them. Next we interviewed them a little about holidays and played with tree and candy cane bubble necklaces. Bubbles were very fun for all. We will be doing more bubbles in the future. It was a great visit. Our next visit is on Friday, January 14. The pen pals will be coming to our school.
Author's Celebration
Thank you to the parents who were able to come to our Author's Celebration today. We heard some wonderful stories. The children reread their published writing from this year and chose one to read aloud. The others offered compliments to the author. Our writing is getting longer and we had lots of great comments so we ran out of time and had to go home. Those who didn't get to read today will read tomorrow.
Reading
We are continuing to work on comprehension skills using social studies material. We are using graphic organizers to help us focus our learning, ask questions, and monitor our comprehension as we read.
Writing
Awesome work on essays. We will be finishing our editing and revising this week.
Math
Fractions will be our focus this week. We will continue to work on fractions, multiplication, and division in problem solving when we return in January.
Social Studies
We are continuing to learn about Texas History. We learned about missions and early towns. We will be learning more about Stephen F. Austin and the Old Three Hundred this week. We will be learning about the Texas Revolution when we return.
Science
We are beginning to plan for our science fair projects. Your child will bring home a paper on Tuesday that needs to be filled out and returned on Thursday, Dec. 16. We will be talking about this more in class but the science project will be done at home. Here is a great website to find possible experiments. http://www.sciencebuddies.org/
Dates to remember:
Yearbook Orders due on December 15
Science Project Idea Paper due on December 16
Holiday Party-December 17 at 1:45
January 4-Return to class
January 28-Marathon Kids forms due
Have a wonderful holiday, if I don't get to see you. Thank you for sharing your children with me. Let me know if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Friday, December 3, 2010
Newsletter-Week of Nov. 29-Dec. 3
Hi,
It is hard to believe that it is already December! This year is flying by. I challenged your children with reading more difficult books for book club groups and completing the books in a week. They were required to write thoughtful responses as well which included a summary of the chapters read, and their thinking. (predictions, connections, questions, and thoughts and feelings) They also wrote about a character and the settings. I was soooooo impressed! Your children are writing thoughtful, honest responses and it was evident how engaged most of them were with their books. We will be starting new book club books next week and will finish the books before the holiday break. I can't wait to read their responses to some fantasy books!
Texas I-CAN! (Initiatives for Children's Activity and Nutrition) study-A doctoral student from my husband's lab at University of Texas is conducting a study to examine the improvements in classroom behavior from academic lessons that incorporate physical activity. We are so excited that part of the study will be conducted with 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students from our school. Please read over the packet that was in the Thursday folders yesterday and let us know if you have any questions or concerns. If you will allow your child to participate, sign the back page of the packet and return it to school. Thank you for your support!
Reading: This week in reading, we worked on using fact/question/response charts as we read a story about slavery called Come Fly with Me. We also used an article about the beginning of the revolutionary war to take notes and keep tracks of our thinking on the article. Next week we will read more about the Revolutionary War and made a chart of Important Facts/Interesting Details/My Thinking. Then we will practice using the chart as we read about Texas Missions.
Writing: We read our personal narratives and wrote comments for each other. We are gathering entries for essay writing. We are noticing and observing and writing about them then stretching our thinking to write about what this observation made us realize. This will lead to big ideas that we will use for a thesis statement and then we will write paragraphs to support our thesis. It has been exciting to hear about their in depth observations and their big ideas! We are planning to have a class Author's Celebration on Monday, December 13 from 2:00-2:40. We will be reading some of our writing. You are invited to join us and help us to celebrate all of our hard work as writers this year.
Math: Division! Division with remainders! What do we do with the remainders????? This has been our focus this week. The kids are doing a great job using different strategies to solve division problems and then to think about the question in the problem to figure out what to do with the remainders. If the question is asking about how many vans they will need if there are 44 people and 8 people per van, then they have to be sure that everyone has a ride, so they will need to have 6 vans. But the actual answer would be 5 remainder 4. If the question is asking how much money each person would get if they had $44 and there were 8 people, then they would each get $4.50. It has been tricky for some but they are getting it. We will be starting fractions next week.
Social Studies: We have been learning about explorers in Texas. They have been working on biographical paper plate projects, charts, journals, and maps. They have been reading from multiple sources. We will be finishing explorers up and begin learning about missions next week.
Dates to remember:
December 6-10-Holiday Stacking Contest-Send in your magazines and catalogs
Return the Texas I-CAN forms
December 7-Senior Choir Tour
December 8-Early Release 12:45
December 9-Literacy Night-5pm-7pm
Monday, December 13-Pen Pal trip to The Court-9:30-11:15
Author's Celebration- 2:00-2:45pm
Friday, December 17-Holiday Party 2:00-2:45pm
Winter Holiday-December 18-January 4, 2011
Thank you for sharing your child with me. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
It is hard to believe that it is already December! This year is flying by. I challenged your children with reading more difficult books for book club groups and completing the books in a week. They were required to write thoughtful responses as well which included a summary of the chapters read, and their thinking. (predictions, connections, questions, and thoughts and feelings) They also wrote about a character and the settings. I was soooooo impressed! Your children are writing thoughtful, honest responses and it was evident how engaged most of them were with their books. We will be starting new book club books next week and will finish the books before the holiday break. I can't wait to read their responses to some fantasy books!
Texas I-CAN! (Initiatives for Children's Activity and Nutrition) study-A doctoral student from my husband's lab at University of Texas is conducting a study to examine the improvements in classroom behavior from academic lessons that incorporate physical activity. We are so excited that part of the study will be conducted with 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students from our school. Please read over the packet that was in the Thursday folders yesterday and let us know if you have any questions or concerns. If you will allow your child to participate, sign the back page of the packet and return it to school. Thank you for your support!
Reading: This week in reading, we worked on using fact/question/response charts as we read a story about slavery called Come Fly with Me. We also used an article about the beginning of the revolutionary war to take notes and keep tracks of our thinking on the article. Next week we will read more about the Revolutionary War and made a chart of Important Facts/Interesting Details/My Thinking. Then we will practice using the chart as we read about Texas Missions.
Writing: We read our personal narratives and wrote comments for each other. We are gathering entries for essay writing. We are noticing and observing and writing about them then stretching our thinking to write about what this observation made us realize. This will lead to big ideas that we will use for a thesis statement and then we will write paragraphs to support our thesis. It has been exciting to hear about their in depth observations and their big ideas! We are planning to have a class Author's Celebration on Monday, December 13 from 2:00-2:40. We will be reading some of our writing. You are invited to join us and help us to celebrate all of our hard work as writers this year.
Math: Division! Division with remainders! What do we do with the remainders????? This has been our focus this week. The kids are doing a great job using different strategies to solve division problems and then to think about the question in the problem to figure out what to do with the remainders. If the question is asking about how many vans they will need if there are 44 people and 8 people per van, then they have to be sure that everyone has a ride, so they will need to have 6 vans. But the actual answer would be 5 remainder 4. If the question is asking how much money each person would get if they had $44 and there were 8 people, then they would each get $4.50. It has been tricky for some but they are getting it. We will be starting fractions next week.
Social Studies: We have been learning about explorers in Texas. They have been working on biographical paper plate projects, charts, journals, and maps. They have been reading from multiple sources. We will be finishing explorers up and begin learning about missions next week.
Dates to remember:
December 6-10-Holiday Stacking Contest-Send in your magazines and catalogs
Return the Texas I-CAN forms
December 7-Senior Choir Tour
December 8-Early Release 12:45
December 9-Literacy Night-5pm-7pm
Monday, December 13-Pen Pal trip to The Court-9:30-11:15
Author's Celebration- 2:00-2:45pm
Friday, December 17-Holiday Party 2:00-2:45pm
Winter Holiday-December 18-January 4, 2011
Thank you for sharing your child with me. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Friday, November 19, 2010
Newsletter_Boogie-O-Rama
Hi,
We had a groovy day today! The kids did a wonderful job singing and dancing in the Boogie-O-Rama! Their outfits and wigs were very cool! Our speakers, Jody and Mallory, as well as our singing soloists, Alexa, Haylea, Aaliyah, and Dre, were awesome. I was extremely impressed!
Our class had a substitute on Wednesday and it didn't go very well. There was a lot of extra talking out, and some inappropriate behavior. So on Thursday, we all reminded each other in writing about the expectations for our class when we have a substitute. They know my expectations when I am here but some may not have realized that those same expectations are in place with a substitute. The entire class did a wonderful job demonstrating those expectations (work hard, quiet voices, respect others) on Thursday and today. I was especially proud of their hard work and calmness in the classroom today with so much excitement going on around school. We will continue to review expectations in the classroom, regarding quality work, in the hallway, in the bathroom, and in the cafeteria as the holidays approach. Your children are very respectful and kind and I am so happy to be with them each day.
Reading-In reading this week, we read a wonderful book called Cheyenne Again and learned about finding themes throughout literature. The children were extremely engaged in this book and had so many thoughtful responses. It tells about a 10 year old Cheyenne boy who is taking from his family to go to boarding school to learn how to be a respectable citizen. We found many themes like sadness, loneliness, anger, and fear but also hope. We thought that the author's message was about remembering your culture and heritage or treat others as you would want to be treated. They did a fantastic job!
Book Club Books-We started some new book clubs this week. We are trying to finish these books by Tuesday and then will be starting new books after Thanksgiving. Most of the kids are really working hard and writing complete summaries and in-depth responses to what they've read. We also wrote and discussed tricky words and use context clues to figure out unknown meanings them confirmed them in the dictionary. Setting and characters were also discussed and written about. We are trying to build our reading stamina as we work on comprehension strategies. Great work!
Writing-Wow! Many of your children are doing a great job with revision! We have been working on our second personal narratives and having individual conferences to discuss revisions. The children are using a checklist to independently make revisions then we meet and discuss other possible revisions to try. We are trying hard to finish these pieces by Tuesday.
Math-Division can be challenging. Many children are understanding division using manipulatives in story problems. Games have also been a good way to experiment with strategies for division and multiplication. Fact families are another tool that many kids use to solve division equations. We are continuing to work on harder divison problems next week. We will be using multiple strategies to solve these problems. Thank you for working with math facts at home as well.
Social Studies-We started to learn about explorers in Texas this week. We will be continuing to study Texas explorers with some interesting activities after the holiday. We will be working on some Thanksgiving activities the next two days.
Dates to Remember:
Nov. 15 - Dec. 3 TAG Referral window open
Nov. 24-26 Thanksgiving Holiday. No School.
Dec. 1 Walk to School Wednesday
Dec. 2 ADHD and Other Bio-behavioral Disorders Information Session facilitated by Linda Classen, M. Ed., LPC @ 6:30 p.m. - 8 p.m @ Blackland Prairie Elementary PRO Center, Rm. D104To RSVP or for more information, contact Felice Geear, BPE Parent Support Specialist at felice_geear@roundrockisd.org or 424-8598.
Dec. 3 Deadline for turning in TAG referrals
Campbell's Labels for Education Contest ends
Dec. 6 - 10 Holiday Catalog Stacking Contest!
Dec. 9-Literacy Night at FCE
Dec. 13-Visit to see our Pen Pals at The Court in Round Rock
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving! I am thankful to be a part of your child's education. Thank you for encouraging them to work hard and try their best each day!
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
We had a groovy day today! The kids did a wonderful job singing and dancing in the Boogie-O-Rama! Their outfits and wigs were very cool! Our speakers, Jody and Mallory, as well as our singing soloists, Alexa, Haylea, Aaliyah, and Dre, were awesome. I was extremely impressed!
Our class had a substitute on Wednesday and it didn't go very well. There was a lot of extra talking out, and some inappropriate behavior. So on Thursday, we all reminded each other in writing about the expectations for our class when we have a substitute. They know my expectations when I am here but some may not have realized that those same expectations are in place with a substitute. The entire class did a wonderful job demonstrating those expectations (work hard, quiet voices, respect others) on Thursday and today. I was especially proud of their hard work and calmness in the classroom today with so much excitement going on around school. We will continue to review expectations in the classroom, regarding quality work, in the hallway, in the bathroom, and in the cafeteria as the holidays approach. Your children are very respectful and kind and I am so happy to be with them each day.
Reading-In reading this week, we read a wonderful book called Cheyenne Again and learned about finding themes throughout literature. The children were extremely engaged in this book and had so many thoughtful responses. It tells about a 10 year old Cheyenne boy who is taking from his family to go to boarding school to learn how to be a respectable citizen. We found many themes like sadness, loneliness, anger, and fear but also hope. We thought that the author's message was about remembering your culture and heritage or treat others as you would want to be treated. They did a fantastic job!
Book Club Books-We started some new book clubs this week. We are trying to finish these books by Tuesday and then will be starting new books after Thanksgiving. Most of the kids are really working hard and writing complete summaries and in-depth responses to what they've read. We also wrote and discussed tricky words and use context clues to figure out unknown meanings them confirmed them in the dictionary. Setting and characters were also discussed and written about. We are trying to build our reading stamina as we work on comprehension strategies. Great work!
Writing-Wow! Many of your children are doing a great job with revision! We have been working on our second personal narratives and having individual conferences to discuss revisions. The children are using a checklist to independently make revisions then we meet and discuss other possible revisions to try. We are trying hard to finish these pieces by Tuesday.
Math-Division can be challenging. Many children are understanding division using manipulatives in story problems. Games have also been a good way to experiment with strategies for division and multiplication. Fact families are another tool that many kids use to solve division equations. We are continuing to work on harder divison problems next week. We will be using multiple strategies to solve these problems. Thank you for working with math facts at home as well.
Social Studies-We started to learn about explorers in Texas this week. We will be continuing to study Texas explorers with some interesting activities after the holiday. We will be working on some Thanksgiving activities the next two days.
Dates to Remember:
Nov. 15 - Dec. 3 TAG Referral window open
Nov. 24-26 Thanksgiving Holiday. No School.
Dec. 1 Walk to School Wednesday
Dec. 2 ADHD and Other Bio-behavioral Disorders Information Session facilitated by Linda Classen, M. Ed., LPC @ 6:30 p.m. - 8 p.m @ Blackland Prairie Elementary PRO Center, Rm. D104To RSVP or for more information, contact Felice Geear, BPE Parent Support Specialist at felice_geear@roundrockisd.org or 424-8598.
Dec. 3 Deadline for turning in TAG referrals
Campbell's Labels for Education Contest ends
Dec. 6 - 10 Holiday Catalog Stacking Contest!
Dec. 9-Literacy Night at FCE
Dec. 13-Visit to see our Pen Pals at The Court in Round Rock
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving! I am thankful to be a part of your child's education. Thank you for encouraging them to work hard and try their best each day!
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Newsletter- November 14
Hi,
We had an odd week last week. I think that the time change had an effect on all of us. (including me) During a lot of the week, we were either very talkative or very sluggish. I know that this week is going to be wonderful! We will all be ready to work hard and learn a lot!
We did have a wonderful visit with many of our pen pals on Friday. Not all of our friends were able to attend, but we had fun participating in some Thanksgiving activities together. Thank you to Austen's Grandmother for filling in and allowing some kids to interview her. We made a giant class turkey which has a feather created by each child and pen pal telling about things for which they are thankful. The turkey with the thankful feathers is out in our hallway along with some photos of our pen pals. We also created words using the letters from Thanksgiving, completed some Thanksgiving math story problems, and interviewed them about their Thanksgiving memories. We made a graph of favorite Thanksgiving foods, played a game called Where is the pinecone?, played a memory game with Thanksgiving pictures, and worked on a Thanksgiving word search. Best of all, we were each able to speak into the microphone and share our fall poems aloud. The class also performed two readers' theaters about Thanksgiving. It was a busy and fun visit!
Reading-We practiced using context clues to figure out unknown words as well as to figure out the correct meaning used in multiple meaning words. We also worked on determining which statements about a passage were telling details and which statement was a main idea. We will be learning more about theme this week and will be using fact/question/response charts to read expository text about Squanto and Harvest Festivals around the world. We will also use them to help us read the Social Studies textbook.
Writing-We are finishing up our second published pieces. These personal narratives will have a great story arc (events leading up to the climax or most important part of the story then a resolution and/or reflection at the end). They will also contain an external story (what are we doing in the story) and an internal story (what are we wondering, thinking, flashing back, flashing forward, imagining, etc...). We should finish our final copies by Thursday and then will begin writing essays.
Math-We are beginning to work more with division this week and we still practice our multiplication strategies along the way. We will incorporate division strategies and fact families into story problems also. As always we will share our strategies so that we can learn from each other and play games to help us practice.
Science-We will be finish learning about heat and energy this week.
Social Studies-We will begin learning about explorers in Texas this week.
Dates to Remember:
Nov. 15 TAG Referral window opens-Go to the Forest Creek TAG website for info
Nov. 16 PTA Reflections Gallery Night
Nov. 17 Picture Retakes
Nov. 18 Thanksgiving Meal (12:05-12:35)
SEPAC November Meeting
Where: RRISD Athletic Complex 10211 W. Parmer Lane
Time: 9:00 am until 12:00 pm
Nov. 19 Boogie-O-Rama-Wear your 70:s clothes. 10:05-10:55
Nov. 24-26 Thanksgiving Holiday. No School.
Dec. 1 Walk to School Wednesday
Dec. 3 Deadline for turning in TAG referrals
Campbell's Labels for Education Contest ends (See Flyer)
Dec. 6 - 10 Holiday Catalog Stacking Contest!
Thank you for sharing your child with me! Have a wonderful week and enjoy the cool weather!
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
We had an odd week last week. I think that the time change had an effect on all of us. (including me) During a lot of the week, we were either very talkative or very sluggish. I know that this week is going to be wonderful! We will all be ready to work hard and learn a lot!
We did have a wonderful visit with many of our pen pals on Friday. Not all of our friends were able to attend, but we had fun participating in some Thanksgiving activities together. Thank you to Austen's Grandmother for filling in and allowing some kids to interview her. We made a giant class turkey which has a feather created by each child and pen pal telling about things for which they are thankful. The turkey with the thankful feathers is out in our hallway along with some photos of our pen pals. We also created words using the letters from Thanksgiving, completed some Thanksgiving math story problems, and interviewed them about their Thanksgiving memories. We made a graph of favorite Thanksgiving foods, played a game called Where is the pinecone?, played a memory game with Thanksgiving pictures, and worked on a Thanksgiving word search. Best of all, we were each able to speak into the microphone and share our fall poems aloud. The class also performed two readers' theaters about Thanksgiving. It was a busy and fun visit!
Reading-We practiced using context clues to figure out unknown words as well as to figure out the correct meaning used in multiple meaning words. We also worked on determining which statements about a passage were telling details and which statement was a main idea. We will be learning more about theme this week and will be using fact/question/response charts to read expository text about Squanto and Harvest Festivals around the world. We will also use them to help us read the Social Studies textbook.
Writing-We are finishing up our second published pieces. These personal narratives will have a great story arc (events leading up to the climax or most important part of the story then a resolution and/or reflection at the end). They will also contain an external story (what are we doing in the story) and an internal story (what are we wondering, thinking, flashing back, flashing forward, imagining, etc...). We should finish our final copies by Thursday and then will begin writing essays.
Math-We are beginning to work more with division this week and we still practice our multiplication strategies along the way. We will incorporate division strategies and fact families into story problems also. As always we will share our strategies so that we can learn from each other and play games to help us practice.
Science-We will be finish learning about heat and energy this week.
Social Studies-We will begin learning about explorers in Texas this week.
Dates to Remember:
Nov. 15 TAG Referral window opens-Go to the Forest Creek TAG website for info
Nov. 16 PTA Reflections Gallery Night
Nov. 17 Picture Retakes
Nov. 18 Thanksgiving Meal (12:05-12:35)
SEPAC November Meeting
Where: RRISD Athletic Complex 10211 W. Parmer Lane
Time: 9:00 am until 12:00 pm
Nov. 19 Boogie-O-Rama-Wear your 70:s clothes. 10:05-10:55
Nov. 24-26 Thanksgiving Holiday. No School.
Dec. 1 Walk to School Wednesday
Dec. 3 Deadline for turning in TAG referrals
Campbell's Labels for Education Contest ends (See Flyer)
Dec. 6 - 10 Holiday Catalog Stacking Contest!
Thank you for sharing your child with me! Have a wonderful week and enjoy the cool weather!
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Friday, November 5, 2010
Newsletter
Hi,
We had a busy but fun week. We finished up our published class book about our pen pals and it looks wonderful. The children did a great job writing important poems about their pen pals and decorating a page with a photo. We had a contest for the cover of the book. There were many beautiful entries and the kids voted for their favorite. Haylea's drawing was picked for the cover and Alexa's drawing will be our title page. I can't wait to see the books after publication!I know that our pen pals are going to love them.
Reading:
In reading we learned some more about poetry and looking for characteristics of free verse or lyrical poems in the poems read. We read traditional literature and created huge charts to understand literary elements in myths, fairy tales, tall tales, legends, and fables. We also read an article about polar bears and made a facts/questions/response chart to help guide our understanding of non-fiction text. Today we read an awesome book about Mt. Everest called Top of the World. We read with a question in mind and used the subheadings to let us know where to find some answers. We learned a lot about the dangers of climbing the tallest point on the earth. Next week we will learn about drama and the differences in punctuation in dialogue in drama and narratives. We will also act out some plays and/or reader's theaters.
Writing:
We have been generating story ideas and writing drafts for our second published piece. We've written about turning points in our lives (first times/last times doing something that used to be hard but isn't anymore, first/last times with a person, animal, or at a place, times when our lives almost changed or did change, and times when we realized something important about ourselves.) We also wrote entries about strong feelings. Using a story arc (events in story that lead up to a climax and then down to a resolution)with stories that we've read helped us to understand the structure of a good story. Today we looked at our first published pieces. We reread them and then determined elements of the piece in which we did well and areas to work on or next steps. Then we read some of our friend's pieces and gave them feedback. Later we looked at all of our entries in our writer's notebooks and chose a few that had good potential. We shared them with a friend and decided on an idea for our next published piece. We wrote a story arc of that idea to help us plan. Next week we will begin writing these pieces. I am very excited!
Math:
Math has been busy with multiplication strategies for larger numbers. We used big arrays broken into smaller arrays as a strategy to solve multiplication with larger numbers. I was so impressed with the variety and quality of strategies that many of your children use when problem solving. I was amazed at how well they could manipulate numbers. We will continue with multiplication and begin division next week.
Science:
We have continued to explore mixtures and solutions. We made a solution of salt and water and tried to boil some salt water to watch the salt evaporate but we ran out of time. The next day, we saw a lot of the salt separate from the water in the pan and on the spoon. We pretended to have a beach in our beakers. We looked at this mixture and separated items using tools. Our beach included sand, water, small rocks, and shells. We used coffee filters, our hands, and tweezers to separate the mixture. We also used a magnet to separate a mixture of beans and metal brackets, watched the ingredients separate in salad dressing and made a solution of Crystal Light powder and water to see the powder dissolve. We will finish up with mixtures and solutions on Monday and begin learning about energy.
Pen Pals:
Our pen pals will be visiting our school on Friday, November 12. We will be doing some Thanksgiving Day activities with them. The children will start planning the specifics on Monday. We would love to have you join us!
Dates to remember:
Nov. 1 -Nov. 12 Round Rock Area Serving Center Annual Food Drive
Nov. 9 TAG Parent Information Night @ 5 pm in the library-If you have any questions about TAG, let me know.
Nov. 9 Food Tasting session by Food Services from 5 - 6 pm
Nov. 9 PTA Meeting @ 6:30 pm in the library
Nov. 9 Senior Choir Concert @ 7:00 pm
Nov. 10 Early Dismissal @ 12:45
Nov. 15 TAG Referral window opens
Nov. 16 PTA Reflections Gallery Night
Nov. 17 Picture Retakes
Nov. 18 Thanksgiving Meal
Nov. 19 Boogie-O-Rama (Fourth Graders perform at 10:05 am)
Dec. 3 Deadline for turning in TAG referrals
Thank you for sharing your child with me. If you have any questions or concerns, let me know!
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
We had a busy but fun week. We finished up our published class book about our pen pals and it looks wonderful. The children did a great job writing important poems about their pen pals and decorating a page with a photo. We had a contest for the cover of the book. There were many beautiful entries and the kids voted for their favorite. Haylea's drawing was picked for the cover and Alexa's drawing will be our title page. I can't wait to see the books after publication!I know that our pen pals are going to love them.
Reading:
In reading we learned some more about poetry and looking for characteristics of free verse or lyrical poems in the poems read. We read traditional literature and created huge charts to understand literary elements in myths, fairy tales, tall tales, legends, and fables. We also read an article about polar bears and made a facts/questions/response chart to help guide our understanding of non-fiction text. Today we read an awesome book about Mt. Everest called Top of the World. We read with a question in mind and used the subheadings to let us know where to find some answers. We learned a lot about the dangers of climbing the tallest point on the earth. Next week we will learn about drama and the differences in punctuation in dialogue in drama and narratives. We will also act out some plays and/or reader's theaters.
Writing:
We have been generating story ideas and writing drafts for our second published piece. We've written about turning points in our lives (first times/last times doing something that used to be hard but isn't anymore, first/last times with a person, animal, or at a place, times when our lives almost changed or did change, and times when we realized something important about ourselves.) We also wrote entries about strong feelings. Using a story arc (events in story that lead up to a climax and then down to a resolution)with stories that we've read helped us to understand the structure of a good story. Today we looked at our first published pieces. We reread them and then determined elements of the piece in which we did well and areas to work on or next steps. Then we read some of our friend's pieces and gave them feedback. Later we looked at all of our entries in our writer's notebooks and chose a few that had good potential. We shared them with a friend and decided on an idea for our next published piece. We wrote a story arc of that idea to help us plan. Next week we will begin writing these pieces. I am very excited!
Math:
Math has been busy with multiplication strategies for larger numbers. We used big arrays broken into smaller arrays as a strategy to solve multiplication with larger numbers. I was so impressed with the variety and quality of strategies that many of your children use when problem solving. I was amazed at how well they could manipulate numbers. We will continue with multiplication and begin division next week.
Science:
We have continued to explore mixtures and solutions. We made a solution of salt and water and tried to boil some salt water to watch the salt evaporate but we ran out of time. The next day, we saw a lot of the salt separate from the water in the pan and on the spoon. We pretended to have a beach in our beakers. We looked at this mixture and separated items using tools. Our beach included sand, water, small rocks, and shells. We used coffee filters, our hands, and tweezers to separate the mixture. We also used a magnet to separate a mixture of beans and metal brackets, watched the ingredients separate in salad dressing and made a solution of Crystal Light powder and water to see the powder dissolve. We will finish up with mixtures and solutions on Monday and begin learning about energy.
Pen Pals:
Our pen pals will be visiting our school on Friday, November 12. We will be doing some Thanksgiving Day activities with them. The children will start planning the specifics on Monday. We would love to have you join us!
Dates to remember:
Nov. 1 -Nov. 12 Round Rock Area Serving Center Annual Food Drive
Nov. 9 TAG Parent Information Night @ 5 pm in the library-If you have any questions about TAG, let me know.
Nov. 9 Food Tasting session by Food Services from 5 - 6 pm
Nov. 9 PTA Meeting @ 6:30 pm in the library
Nov. 9 Senior Choir Concert @ 7:00 pm
Nov. 10 Early Dismissal @ 12:45
Nov. 15 TAG Referral window opens
Nov. 16 PTA Reflections Gallery Night
Nov. 17 Picture Retakes
Nov. 18 Thanksgiving Meal
Nov. 19 Boogie-O-Rama (Fourth Graders perform at 10:05 am)
Dec. 3 Deadline for turning in TAG referrals
Thank you for sharing your child with me. If you have any questions or concerns, let me know!
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Pen Pal Books
How did you like creating our pen pal books? What do you think our pen pals will think about them? Write about your thoughts and feelings and comment on each other's posts.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Newletter-Red Ribbon Week and Harvest Festival
Hi,
We had an eventful Red Ribbon Week! We wore clothing to represent our mottos for each day and learned about the importance of making good choices especially when it comes to drugs and alcohol. We also wrote essays about being drug free for an essay contest. Students from our class won 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in the essay contest! Jody won 1st place for her essay called, Sock it to Drugs. Colton won 2nd place for his essay called, Team up Against Drugs. Alexa's essay, Say Peace Out to Drugs, won third place. We were all so proud of our awesome writers! Congratulations!
Harvest Festival
Tonight is our Harvest Festival. We will be having fun playing games, jumping in inflatables, and having fun. Our Forest Creek Service Club will be giving out treats and accepting donations for UNICEF. Go to the UNICEF website for games, information, and activites. If you collect any UNICEF donations, please return the orange box on Monday. We will be counting them and getting the money ready to send off. Our school-wide goal is $500. We'll let you know how we do. Thanks for your support of UNICEF and of our PTA through the Harvest Festival.
Reading
This week in reading, we learned about free verse and lyrical poems. We read lots of different poetry books and classified them as free verse or lyrical. Sharing poems aloud is always fun and we did a bunch of that this week as well. We also read some non-fiction articles and expository text and used the text features to help with comprehension. We learned the difference between standard subtitles and inferential subtitles. Standard subtitles tell us exactly what that section will be about however inferential subtitles give us a hint in a clever way and we need to use our background knowledge and text clues to infer the topic of that section. Next week we will be reading more expository text and doing some more work with poetry.
Writing
We published our poems this week. Poems can be tricky to write but the children used lots of sensory words and great descriptions to enhance their poetry. We experimented with line breaks and phrases also. They will be out in the hallway so enjoy! Writing our class book has taken up the rest of the week. We are writing important poems about our pen pals for our class book. The children worked on prewriting then wrote rough drafts using information from our interviews. I conferenced with each child about ways to revise and edit and they wrote their final copy on the fancy paper for the publisher. They first used pencil then wrote over it in sharpie. I will be printing photos of the children and the pen pals this weekend and we will finish up with illustrations on Monday.
Class Books-Student Treasures
I will be sending home another form from the Student Treasures Company. They are publishing our class books. If you would like to purchase a class book, send back the form with the payment ASAP. If you would not like to purchase a class book, PLEASE, send back the form with your signature stating that you saw the form. If we get all the forms returned then we will receive a free class book. The books will be back for the holidays. Let me know if you have any questions.
Cover Contest-Class Books
We need a beautiful cover for our class book. If your child would like to create a sample cover with the title and our class name on it, that would be great. The sample should be in color and it should be horizontal, not vertical. Bring in the sample by Thursday. We will be voting for our cover, and the title page on Thursday morning. Put your name on the back.
Math-Math has been fun! We have been doing some probability and statistics. Graphing, tree diagrams, etc... The kids have done well and seemed to really enjoy the activities. We also have been doing more multiplication strategies using arrays and breaking apart into smaller numbers. We completed some problem solving yesterday and I was amazed at all the cool and effective strategies that they used. It was very easy for them. They should be very proud of themselves! We will continue with more multiplication strategies to work on our computational fluency next week.
Science-We have been learning about solutions and mixtures. We will be doing some more experiments next week and then moving on to more density experiments.
Have a wonderful weekend and I will see you at the Harvest Festival. Have a safe Halloween and I'm sure everyone will be ready for a big day at school on Monday!
Thank you for sharing your children with me! Let me know if you have any questions or concerns!
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
We had an eventful Red Ribbon Week! We wore clothing to represent our mottos for each day and learned about the importance of making good choices especially when it comes to drugs and alcohol. We also wrote essays about being drug free for an essay contest. Students from our class won 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in the essay contest! Jody won 1st place for her essay called, Sock it to Drugs. Colton won 2nd place for his essay called, Team up Against Drugs. Alexa's essay, Say Peace Out to Drugs, won third place. We were all so proud of our awesome writers! Congratulations!
Harvest Festival
Tonight is our Harvest Festival. We will be having fun playing games, jumping in inflatables, and having fun. Our Forest Creek Service Club will be giving out treats and accepting donations for UNICEF. Go to the UNICEF website for games, information, and activites. If you collect any UNICEF donations, please return the orange box on Monday. We will be counting them and getting the money ready to send off. Our school-wide goal is $500. We'll let you know how we do. Thanks for your support of UNICEF and of our PTA through the Harvest Festival.
Reading
This week in reading, we learned about free verse and lyrical poems. We read lots of different poetry books and classified them as free verse or lyrical. Sharing poems aloud is always fun and we did a bunch of that this week as well. We also read some non-fiction articles and expository text and used the text features to help with comprehension. We learned the difference between standard subtitles and inferential subtitles. Standard subtitles tell us exactly what that section will be about however inferential subtitles give us a hint in a clever way and we need to use our background knowledge and text clues to infer the topic of that section. Next week we will be reading more expository text and doing some more work with poetry.
Writing
We published our poems this week. Poems can be tricky to write but the children used lots of sensory words and great descriptions to enhance their poetry. We experimented with line breaks and phrases also. They will be out in the hallway so enjoy! Writing our class book has taken up the rest of the week. We are writing important poems about our pen pals for our class book. The children worked on prewriting then wrote rough drafts using information from our interviews. I conferenced with each child about ways to revise and edit and they wrote their final copy on the fancy paper for the publisher. They first used pencil then wrote over it in sharpie. I will be printing photos of the children and the pen pals this weekend and we will finish up with illustrations on Monday.
Class Books-Student Treasures
I will be sending home another form from the Student Treasures Company. They are publishing our class books. If you would like to purchase a class book, send back the form with the payment ASAP. If you would not like to purchase a class book, PLEASE, send back the form with your signature stating that you saw the form. If we get all the forms returned then we will receive a free class book. The books will be back for the holidays. Let me know if you have any questions.
Cover Contest-Class Books
We need a beautiful cover for our class book. If your child would like to create a sample cover with the title and our class name on it, that would be great. The sample should be in color and it should be horizontal, not vertical. Bring in the sample by Thursday. We will be voting for our cover, and the title page on Thursday morning. Put your name on the back.
Math-Math has been fun! We have been doing some probability and statistics. Graphing, tree diagrams, etc... The kids have done well and seemed to really enjoy the activities. We also have been doing more multiplication strategies using arrays and breaking apart into smaller numbers. We completed some problem solving yesterday and I was amazed at all the cool and effective strategies that they used. It was very easy for them. They should be very proud of themselves! We will continue with more multiplication strategies to work on our computational fluency next week.
Science-We have been learning about solutions and mixtures. We will be doing some more experiments next week and then moving on to more density experiments.
Have a wonderful weekend and I will see you at the Harvest Festival. Have a safe Halloween and I'm sure everyone will be ready for a big day at school on Monday!
Thank you for sharing your children with me! Let me know if you have any questions or concerns!
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Newsletter
Hi,
We had a wonderful visit with our pen pals on Friday. We even got interviewed by a reporter from the Austin American Statesman. The story of our pen pal program should run the week of Thanksgiving! Look for it!
Don't forget to turn in your art work forms by Friday. Your child's artwork can be turned into beautiful gifts for the holidays.
Please turn in your book order form ASAP. This is for our class book. We will be creating poetry and artwork with photos of our pen pals. Each of the students will be creating a page for the book. If you don't want to purchase a book, send back the form with the "no" checked so that we can receive a free book for our classroom.
Harvest Festival-Friday, October 29, 2010
This Friday is our school's Harvest Festival. There will be lots of games, activities, and fun. Come join us!
UNICEF-Our class and our school will be collecting money for UNICEF. Your child will come home with an orange UNICEF box. You are not required to collect at all. We learned about some of the difficulties that children from around the world encounter daily. We read a magazine article and read some books to give us information. We also will look at the UNICEF website to gain more information. Many children don't have clean drinking water, nutrious foods, or medicine. Some children have to work for their families and don't get to go to school at all. UNICEF helps the children around the world. Our school goal is $500. The Forest Creek Service Club will have a table set up at the Harvest Festival to give information and collect donations. Thank you for your support and for helping your child realize that they can make a difference in the world.
Reading-We have been learning about text structures in expository text. Non-fiction text can be organized by comparing and contrasting information, sequencing the information chronologically, or discussing the causes and effects of the information. We read articles and decided which format was used. We are learning more about poetry this week.
Writing-We worked on writing poems and finished them today. They turned out very well. We will put them in the hallway for everyone to enjoy. We started collecting some entries for our next narrative by thinking about family stories and strong emotions. We are going to work on our class book the rest of this week then continue with personal narratives.
Math-Input/output charts have been interesting. We used these to learn a little about algebra. We also continued to work on multiplication and patterns. This week we are working on probability and statistics.
Science-We learned about changes in matter by adding or taking away heat or energy. We used several experiments and to show matter changing. We will continue this week with solutions and mixtures.
PTA Donations-Yeah! No selling wrapping paper! Please help our school by donating to our PTA. The class with the highest donations will get a class party. We are in the running. Keep sending in those donations!
Red Ribbon Week-We have been learning about making good choices and staying healthy. We read about drugs in our health books and wrote essays for the school essay contest. We will continue learning more about this topic during this week.
Thank you for sharing your child with me! I learned a lot at my training last week but missed the kids! I was very happy to be back!
Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
We had a wonderful visit with our pen pals on Friday. We even got interviewed by a reporter from the Austin American Statesman. The story of our pen pal program should run the week of Thanksgiving! Look for it!
Don't forget to turn in your art work forms by Friday. Your child's artwork can be turned into beautiful gifts for the holidays.
Please turn in your book order form ASAP. This is for our class book. We will be creating poetry and artwork with photos of our pen pals. Each of the students will be creating a page for the book. If you don't want to purchase a book, send back the form with the "no" checked so that we can receive a free book for our classroom.
Harvest Festival-Friday, October 29, 2010
This Friday is our school's Harvest Festival. There will be lots of games, activities, and fun. Come join us!
UNICEF-Our class and our school will be collecting money for UNICEF. Your child will come home with an orange UNICEF box. You are not required to collect at all. We learned about some of the difficulties that children from around the world encounter daily. We read a magazine article and read some books to give us information. We also will look at the UNICEF website to gain more information. Many children don't have clean drinking water, nutrious foods, or medicine. Some children have to work for their families and don't get to go to school at all. UNICEF helps the children around the world. Our school goal is $500. The Forest Creek Service Club will have a table set up at the Harvest Festival to give information and collect donations. Thank you for your support and for helping your child realize that they can make a difference in the world.
Reading-We have been learning about text structures in expository text. Non-fiction text can be organized by comparing and contrasting information, sequencing the information chronologically, or discussing the causes and effects of the information. We read articles and decided which format was used. We are learning more about poetry this week.
Writing-We worked on writing poems and finished them today. They turned out very well. We will put them in the hallway for everyone to enjoy. We started collecting some entries for our next narrative by thinking about family stories and strong emotions. We are going to work on our class book the rest of this week then continue with personal narratives.
Math-Input/output charts have been interesting. We used these to learn a little about algebra. We also continued to work on multiplication and patterns. This week we are working on probability and statistics.
Science-We learned about changes in matter by adding or taking away heat or energy. We used several experiments and to show matter changing. We will continue this week with solutions and mixtures.
PTA Donations-Yeah! No selling wrapping paper! Please help our school by donating to our PTA. The class with the highest donations will get a class party. We are in the running. Keep sending in those donations!
Red Ribbon Week-We have been learning about making good choices and staying healthy. We read about drugs in our health books and wrote essays for the school essay contest. We will continue learning more about this topic during this week.
Thank you for sharing your child with me! I learned a lot at my training last week but missed the kids! I was very happy to be back!
Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Newsletter-First Touchdown out of the Entire School!
Hello,
Your children have been doing a wonderful job being social but respectful in the cafeteria. The classes earn yards on a football field for each green cup or great day in the cafeteria. We have had just a few yellow cups but we've been steadily marching up that football field this year. Our class, Bartholomew's Bats, were the FIRST class in the entire school to make a touchdown! This means that we have earned a Reward Party!
Reward Party!!!!! Yeah!!!!
We have decided to celebrate our HOWL behavior by having a pajama day AND an electronics party on Monday, October 18. The children are encouraged to wear pajamas
(they still need to meet dress code). The students may bring in ONE electronic item. No cell phones, please. It must be able to fit in their back pack because it will remain in the backpack until the party at the end of the day. Any games that come to school for the party must be rated E for Everyone. I-Pods or MP3 players are only listened to by the person who brought in the I-Pod or MP3 player. If your child or you are not comfortable bringing in an expensive and special electronic item from home, that is completely understandable. The school laptops will be available to play games from our links page on our web page. Let me know if I forgot anything about electronics parties or if you have any questions or concerns about our party. The children are VERY excited!
Reading-This week in reading we read lots of traditional tales (fairy tales, legends, myths, fables, tall tales, etc...) and have been independently choosing projects from a project menu to complete about the books read. We also have been practicing making inferences as we read. (Background Knowledge + Text Clues = Inference) We used a book by Jane Yolen called Encounter on Tuesday. It is a book about Columbus written from a Native boy's point of view. I read it to them without using the illustrations and they did an amazing job using the context and their knowledge to make inferences. We also read an article about the Titanic and made inferences about the meanings of tricky words in the article. We will be doing more work with expository text (nonfiction) and procedural text this week. We will be looking at the text structure to help us comprehend the material in a more effective way.
Writing-A variety of poetry books were read this week by your children. They were immersed in poems to give them some models to try writing our own poems. We each took an entry from our writer's notebook and underlined key phrases or important parts. Then we listed those parts and thought about how we could turn our words into poetry. This is not an easy task but the poems written by your children are creative, poetic, expressive, and just plain amazing! We will be finishing these up next week and publishing them. I think you will be impressed. We will also be writing essays for the Red Ribbon Week Contest which is due on Oct. 25.
Math-Who ever thought algebra was difficult? Your children are working hard and figuring out how to apply algebraic equations to patterns and tables. They are doing quite well. We are using models to show the patterns and then using drawings and numbers to progress from the concrete to the abstract. We will continue to practice our multiplication, addition, and subtraction using problem solving with patterns and tables next week. Thank you for your continued help at home practicing math facts and finding real life situations to practice math in daily life.
Science-We have been classifying matter this week. We did a demonstration using balloons to show density and various liquids which stack themselves in layers in a graduated cylinder depending on their density. We completed a webquest about density and practice weighing objects in grams using triple beam balances. We will continue next week learning about changing states of matter.
Next week, I will be at a three day training to become TAG (talented and gifted) certified. I will have a substitute teacher on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I am excited to go to this training to learn more about challenging your children and pushing them academically and creatively. This class is full of kids who need this extra nudge. I think that they will be excited as well!
Friday, October 22-PEN PAL VISIT TO FOREST CREEK! Our pen pals will be coming to our school on Friday. We are so excited to see them again. We made fall-themed invitations from each child to encourage them all to attend. We will be interviewing them about their favorite holidays and hopefully hear some exciting holiday stories from their lives. We will also interview them about their favorite things as children and compare them to our own favorite things now. The children and the pen pals will create some fall art projects together and will also enjoy a snack prepared by the children after reading and following procedural texts or recipes. (see reading above)
It would be wonderful to have at least four parent volunteers to help with the activities. I plan to have four tables set up in the library and have the pen pals and children stay at one table while we move the activities from one table to the next until everyone has completed all four activities. The pen pals should be arriving at about 10:30 and staying until almost 12:00. We would love to have your assistance if you are available. It is also wonderful to see the children and the elders interact. Let me know if you can come!
Dates to remember:
PTA donations being collected until Oct. 29-Haniya won a door prize already! Thanks to those who have supported our PTA.
October 25-29= Red Ribbon Week
October 29=Harvest Festival at FCE from 5-8pm
November 4=PTA Reflections Contest entries due
Have a wonderful weekend! Please contact me with any questions or concerns. Thank you for sharing your child with me.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Your children have been doing a wonderful job being social but respectful in the cafeteria. The classes earn yards on a football field for each green cup or great day in the cafeteria. We have had just a few yellow cups but we've been steadily marching up that football field this year. Our class, Bartholomew's Bats, were the FIRST class in the entire school to make a touchdown! This means that we have earned a Reward Party!
Reward Party!!!!! Yeah!!!!
We have decided to celebrate our HOWL behavior by having a pajama day AND an electronics party on Monday, October 18. The children are encouraged to wear pajamas
(they still need to meet dress code). The students may bring in ONE electronic item. No cell phones, please. It must be able to fit in their back pack because it will remain in the backpack until the party at the end of the day. Any games that come to school for the party must be rated E for Everyone. I-Pods or MP3 players are only listened to by the person who brought in the I-Pod or MP3 player. If your child or you are not comfortable bringing in an expensive and special electronic item from home, that is completely understandable. The school laptops will be available to play games from our links page on our web page. Let me know if I forgot anything about electronics parties or if you have any questions or concerns about our party. The children are VERY excited!
Reading-This week in reading we read lots of traditional tales (fairy tales, legends, myths, fables, tall tales, etc...) and have been independently choosing projects from a project menu to complete about the books read. We also have been practicing making inferences as we read. (Background Knowledge + Text Clues = Inference) We used a book by Jane Yolen called Encounter on Tuesday. It is a book about Columbus written from a Native boy's point of view. I read it to them without using the illustrations and they did an amazing job using the context and their knowledge to make inferences. We also read an article about the Titanic and made inferences about the meanings of tricky words in the article. We will be doing more work with expository text (nonfiction) and procedural text this week. We will be looking at the text structure to help us comprehend the material in a more effective way.
Writing-A variety of poetry books were read this week by your children. They were immersed in poems to give them some models to try writing our own poems. We each took an entry from our writer's notebook and underlined key phrases or important parts. Then we listed those parts and thought about how we could turn our words into poetry. This is not an easy task but the poems written by your children are creative, poetic, expressive, and just plain amazing! We will be finishing these up next week and publishing them. I think you will be impressed. We will also be writing essays for the Red Ribbon Week Contest which is due on Oct. 25.
Math-Who ever thought algebra was difficult? Your children are working hard and figuring out how to apply algebraic equations to patterns and tables. They are doing quite well. We are using models to show the patterns and then using drawings and numbers to progress from the concrete to the abstract. We will continue to practice our multiplication, addition, and subtraction using problem solving with patterns and tables next week. Thank you for your continued help at home practicing math facts and finding real life situations to practice math in daily life.
Science-We have been classifying matter this week. We did a demonstration using balloons to show density and various liquids which stack themselves in layers in a graduated cylinder depending on their density. We completed a webquest about density and practice weighing objects in grams using triple beam balances. We will continue next week learning about changing states of matter.
Next week, I will be at a three day training to become TAG (talented and gifted) certified. I will have a substitute teacher on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I am excited to go to this training to learn more about challenging your children and pushing them academically and creatively. This class is full of kids who need this extra nudge. I think that they will be excited as well!
Friday, October 22-PEN PAL VISIT TO FOREST CREEK! Our pen pals will be coming to our school on Friday. We are so excited to see them again. We made fall-themed invitations from each child to encourage them all to attend. We will be interviewing them about their favorite holidays and hopefully hear some exciting holiday stories from their lives. We will also interview them about their favorite things as children and compare them to our own favorite things now. The children and the pen pals will create some fall art projects together and will also enjoy a snack prepared by the children after reading and following procedural texts or recipes. (see reading above)
It would be wonderful to have at least four parent volunteers to help with the activities. I plan to have four tables set up in the library and have the pen pals and children stay at one table while we move the activities from one table to the next until everyone has completed all four activities. The pen pals should be arriving at about 10:30 and staying until almost 12:00. We would love to have your assistance if you are available. It is also wonderful to see the children and the elders interact. Let me know if you can come!
Dates to remember:
PTA donations being collected until Oct. 29-Haniya won a door prize already! Thanks to those who have supported our PTA.
October 25-29= Red Ribbon Week
October 29=Harvest Festival at FCE from 5-8pm
November 4=PTA Reflections Contest entries due
Have a wonderful weekend! Please contact me with any questions or concerns. Thank you for sharing your child with me.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Monday, October 11, 2010
Goal Setting
What do you think about setting goals for yourself? We set year long goals for you during your conferences. Do you ever set up short goals for yourself? Does setting goals seem to help you? Tell us what you think. Read other people's comments and make your own comments in response to them. Happy Blogging!!!!!
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Newsletter-Conference Week
Hi!
Happy Columbus Day! I will see a bunch of you today for Parent-Teacher-Student conferences. I saw some of you last week and I'll see some more later this week. I look forward to meeting with each of you to discuss your child's progress so far and his/her goals for fourth grade. It is very exciting!
I was so proud of your children on Friday afternoon. We had our first Author's Tea of the year. Each student has gone through the writing process with one of their entries and created a wonderful person narrative. Our class will be reading buddies with Mrs. Garcia's first grade class. We invited our reading buddies to come to our classroom and listen to our stories. We chatted with our new friends then shared our writing. Then we shared some snacks. It was a huge success! We will be reading our writing to our Pen Pals when they come to our school for the next visit on October 22. Parents and families will be invited to our next Author's Tea.
On Tuesday, we will read some of our classmates stories and write down specific parts of the writing that we really liked or admired. The lists will be long. These stories contained lots of details, strong descriptions, zooming in on the most important parts, great leads and conclusions. We are working on making our stories more detailed with strong words that add to our stories, telling true and exact details about the most important parts to let the reader feel like he/she is there with the writer, as well as being sure to include exciting leads and thoughtful conclusions. We are off to a great start with our writing this year. Sharing our stories is important because it gives us a purpose for writing and an authentic audience.
Reading- In reading we have been reading traditional tales such as fables, fairy tales, folktales, myths, tall tales, and legends. We have been discussing the elements of each type of story and will be working on some projects with these books.
Writing-We will be reading some poems and publishing a personal narrative poem by Friday. It will be amazing.
Math-We are continuing to work on multiplication strategies and began doing some algebra using patterns and tables. We are using creative strategies, manipulatives, drawings, and sharing to figure out these strategies.
Science-Classifying mass is our topic. We did an exploration with magnets and objects and determined if they could be attracted through paper, plastic, and water. We also did a web quest and learned about mass, density, and inertia. We will continue with these concepts this week.
The Book Fair is beginning this week. Come and find some new titles for your child.
Picture Day is on Wednesday.
Thank you for sharing your children with me. Let me know if you have any concerns or questions.
Have a great week!
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Happy Columbus Day! I will see a bunch of you today for Parent-Teacher-Student conferences. I saw some of you last week and I'll see some more later this week. I look forward to meeting with each of you to discuss your child's progress so far and his/her goals for fourth grade. It is very exciting!
I was so proud of your children on Friday afternoon. We had our first Author's Tea of the year. Each student has gone through the writing process with one of their entries and created a wonderful person narrative. Our class will be reading buddies with Mrs. Garcia's first grade class. We invited our reading buddies to come to our classroom and listen to our stories. We chatted with our new friends then shared our writing. Then we shared some snacks. It was a huge success! We will be reading our writing to our Pen Pals when they come to our school for the next visit on October 22. Parents and families will be invited to our next Author's Tea.
On Tuesday, we will read some of our classmates stories and write down specific parts of the writing that we really liked or admired. The lists will be long. These stories contained lots of details, strong descriptions, zooming in on the most important parts, great leads and conclusions. We are working on making our stories more detailed with strong words that add to our stories, telling true and exact details about the most important parts to let the reader feel like he/she is there with the writer, as well as being sure to include exciting leads and thoughtful conclusions. We are off to a great start with our writing this year. Sharing our stories is important because it gives us a purpose for writing and an authentic audience.
Reading- In reading we have been reading traditional tales such as fables, fairy tales, folktales, myths, tall tales, and legends. We have been discussing the elements of each type of story and will be working on some projects with these books.
Writing-We will be reading some poems and publishing a personal narrative poem by Friday. It will be amazing.
Math-We are continuing to work on multiplication strategies and began doing some algebra using patterns and tables. We are using creative strategies, manipulatives, drawings, and sharing to figure out these strategies.
Science-Classifying mass is our topic. We did an exploration with magnets and objects and determined if they could be attracted through paper, plastic, and water. We also did a web quest and learned about mass, density, and inertia. We will continue with these concepts this week.
The Book Fair is beginning this week. Come and find some new titles for your child.
Picture Day is on Wednesday.
Thank you for sharing your children with me. Let me know if you have any concerns or questions.
Have a great week!
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Multiplication!
How do you feel about multiplication? What strategies are easy for you? What strategies are hard for you?
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Awesome Week!
Hi,
We had another awesome week! Our field trip on Monday to meet our pen pals at The Court Retirement Facility was wonderful! The residents were so excited to meet the children. The kids created a list of questions that they wanted to use to interview their pen pals so we conducted interviews. Then we played some games like multiplication bingo and Keep the Balloon in the Air with a Fly Swatter game. (I don't know if it has a real name!) We also drew a picture together of our favorite things which we are making into a paper quilt for our pen pals to keep in their activities room. The paper quilt will also contain photos of the children and the residents. We will be writing letters to them this week. Erin, the activities director at The Court, and I have planned dates for monthly visits for the rest of the year. I have to check with the office to be sure that we can have our visits on those particular days. Our pen pals will be coming to visit us in October. We will be meeting in the library. I need to confirm the date with the librarian and our office and then will let you know. We would love to have you come and enjoy our pen pals with us!
In Social Studies, we rotated teachers and learned about the regions of Texas, the cities and rivers, Native Americans in Texas, and longitude and latitude. It was very nice to meet all of the fourth graders and for all of the students to get to know the teachers a little. We reviewed regions by decorating a giant cookie shaped like Texas. We used icing with food coloring to represent the four major regions. Twizzlers represented rivers. Gumdrops were mountains, Red Hots were cities, and Skittles were resources and products. We used maps in the textbook as a resource. I will be posting photos of the cookies on our blog. Check them out! We will be having a test on Texas Regions, Map Skills, and Native Americans on Tuesday.
We had a fun and educational science assembly on Thursday! A scientist from Mad Science came and taught us about sound waves and sound. Ask your child about some of the demonstrations that she did for us.
We took our first fourth grade benchmark. It was a writing benchmark and we spent a lot of the day on Wednesday writing our compositions. The children did a wonderful job showing skills and techniques that they've learned this year. This benchmark helps us to practice the testing format of the writing TAKS test that the students will be taking in the beginning of March.
Be sure to practice math facts with your child everyday, if possible. Basic addition and subtraction should be automatic for them. Most of the multiplication facts from 0x 0 to 12X 12 should be almost automatic. Thank you for working on this with your child.
Conferences are taking place this week afterschool and next week. If you still need a conference time, let me know. Your child should come with you to our conference so that they can talk about their goals and progress so far.
Remember:
Forest Creek Service Club-meeting afterschool on Monday until 3:45.
OLSAT testing on Monday, October 4.
Social Studies test on Tuesday, October 5.
Oct.5 SEPAC Monthly Parent Coffee & PTA Meeting in the library @ 6:30 pm
Oct. 6 1st Walk to School Wednesday,
TAKS Accountability Review Meeting in the library @ 4:00 pm
Oct. 7 Pre K, Kinder, 1st, 3rd, and 5th Vision and Hearing Screening
Parenting with Love and Logic Brown Bag Lunch Book Club
Oct. 8 Pre K, Kinder, 1st, 3rd, and 5th Vision and Hearing Screening
Oct. 11 No School (Columbus Day)--Parent Teacher Conferences
Oct. 11- 15 Book Fair in the library
Oct. 29 Harvest Fest from 5-8 pm
Nov. 6 2010 Parent Summit 9 am - 4 pm at McNeil HS
Have a wonderul week! Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
We had another awesome week! Our field trip on Monday to meet our pen pals at The Court Retirement Facility was wonderful! The residents were so excited to meet the children. The kids created a list of questions that they wanted to use to interview their pen pals so we conducted interviews. Then we played some games like multiplication bingo and Keep the Balloon in the Air with a Fly Swatter game. (I don't know if it has a real name!) We also drew a picture together of our favorite things which we are making into a paper quilt for our pen pals to keep in their activities room. The paper quilt will also contain photos of the children and the residents. We will be writing letters to them this week. Erin, the activities director at The Court, and I have planned dates for monthly visits for the rest of the year. I have to check with the office to be sure that we can have our visits on those particular days. Our pen pals will be coming to visit us in October. We will be meeting in the library. I need to confirm the date with the librarian and our office and then will let you know. We would love to have you come and enjoy our pen pals with us!
In Social Studies, we rotated teachers and learned about the regions of Texas, the cities and rivers, Native Americans in Texas, and longitude and latitude. It was very nice to meet all of the fourth graders and for all of the students to get to know the teachers a little. We reviewed regions by decorating a giant cookie shaped like Texas. We used icing with food coloring to represent the four major regions. Twizzlers represented rivers. Gumdrops were mountains, Red Hots were cities, and Skittles were resources and products. We used maps in the textbook as a resource. I will be posting photos of the cookies on our blog. Check them out! We will be having a test on Texas Regions, Map Skills, and Native Americans on Tuesday.
We had a fun and educational science assembly on Thursday! A scientist from Mad Science came and taught us about sound waves and sound. Ask your child about some of the demonstrations that she did for us.
We took our first fourth grade benchmark. It was a writing benchmark and we spent a lot of the day on Wednesday writing our compositions. The children did a wonderful job showing skills and techniques that they've learned this year. This benchmark helps us to practice the testing format of the writing TAKS test that the students will be taking in the beginning of March.
Be sure to practice math facts with your child everyday, if possible. Basic addition and subtraction should be automatic for them. Most of the multiplication facts from 0x 0 to 12X 12 should be almost automatic. Thank you for working on this with your child.
Conferences are taking place this week afterschool and next week. If you still need a conference time, let me know. Your child should come with you to our conference so that they can talk about their goals and progress so far.
Remember:
Forest Creek Service Club-meeting afterschool on Monday until 3:45.
OLSAT testing on Monday, October 4.
Social Studies test on Tuesday, October 5.
Oct.5 SEPAC Monthly Parent Coffee & PTA Meeting in the library @ 6:30 pm
Oct. 6 1st Walk to School Wednesday,
TAKS Accountability Review Meeting in the library @ 4:00 pm
Oct. 7 Pre K, Kinder, 1st, 3rd, and 5th Vision and Hearing Screening
Parenting with Love and Logic Brown Bag Lunch Book Club
Oct. 8 Pre K, Kinder, 1st, 3rd, and 5th Vision and Hearing Screening
Oct. 11 No School (Columbus Day)--Parent Teacher Conferences
Oct. 11- 15 Book Fair in the library
Oct. 29 Harvest Fest from 5-8 pm
Nov. 6 2010 Parent Summit 9 am - 4 pm at McNeil HS
Have a wonderul week! Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Newsletter Week #5
Hi,
Our class was the first one to turn in all of our Registration forms! Yeah! Thank you for your help!
We had a busy and fun week. Phil Bildner, the Texas Bluebonnet Award Winnning Author, came to our school to talk to all of the fourth graders on Tuesday. He is very entertaining and relates well to the children. He brought some of his manuscripts and showed them all the revisions that he had to do before the book got published and read some of his rejection notes. The kids learned that the revision is important and necessary and all authors do it. He also did some Show, Not Tell activities with them which were hilarious and our creative fourth graders did great. (example: Instead of telling that Grandma is angry, show that Grandma is angry but saying that she stomped her feet, she yelled and screamed, she pulled out her hair, her face was bright red, steam was coming out of her ears, she threw her dentures, etc...) We were so excited after Mr. Bildner's visit, that we came back and wrote until recess!
Here's what we did this week:
Reading: We learned about asking questions as we read. We practiced using books about the first Moon Landing in 1969 and a book about Ruby Bridges.
Writing: We are working on writing detailed leads and writing long and hard with our draft. Then rereading to revise. Next week we will choose another entry from our writer's notebook to take through the beginning of the writing process. We will then look at our two drafts and decide which one we want to publish.
Math: We are learning lots of multiplication strategies and practicing them using games. We are using mental math with larger numbers and appyling them to problem solving situations.
Social Studies: We are learning about Texas Regions, Native Americans, and Longitude and Latitude. The class is staying in their room and the teachers are rotating so each teacher will be in each classroom for a lesson. We've done 3 of these rotations so far and it has been great! We will be doing a Texas Cookie project next week on Friday and will need some supplies. Look for more information soon.
Monday is our first Pen Pal Field Trip and we are all very excited. The kids wrote great letters today and I will drop them off at The Court tomorrow.
Next Week is Education Go Get it Week.
Monday--"Step Up for Education"--Wear Tennis Shoes
Tuesday--"Show Your College Spirit"--Wear your favorite team t-shirt/jersey
Wednesday--"Hats off to College"--Wear your favorite team hat
Thursday--"Dress for Success"--Dress as your future profession
Friday--"Your Future is So BRIGHT!"--Wear sunglasses
Here are other dates to remember:
Oct. 4-Forest Creek Service Club Meeting in our classroom (512) from 2:45-3:30
Oct.5 SEPAC Monthly Parent Coffee (See Flyer)PTA Meeting in the library @ 6:30 pm
Oct. 6 1st Walk to School Wednesday, TAKS Accountability Review Meeting in the library @ 4:00 pm
Oct. 7 Pre K, Kinder, 1st, 3rd, and 5th Vision and Hearing Screening
Oct. 8 Pre K, Kinder, 1st, 3rd, and 5th Vision and Hearing Screening
Oct. 11 No School (Columbus Day)--Parent Teacher Conferences
Oct. 11- 15 Book Fair in the library
Oct. 29 Harvest Fest from 5-8 pm
FYI- if you have a Randalls Remarkable card, please take a minute to sign up for e-Labels for Education. FCE will receive 100pts per person. Lots easier than buying 100 cans of soup for 1 point each! Thank you for sending in Box Tops and Labels!
Have a wonderful weekend! Let me know if you have any concerns or questions. Thank you for sharing your children with me!
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Our class was the first one to turn in all of our Registration forms! Yeah! Thank you for your help!
We had a busy and fun week. Phil Bildner, the Texas Bluebonnet Award Winnning Author, came to our school to talk to all of the fourth graders on Tuesday. He is very entertaining and relates well to the children. He brought some of his manuscripts and showed them all the revisions that he had to do before the book got published and read some of his rejection notes. The kids learned that the revision is important and necessary and all authors do it. He also did some Show, Not Tell activities with them which were hilarious and our creative fourth graders did great. (example: Instead of telling that Grandma is angry, show that Grandma is angry but saying that she stomped her feet, she yelled and screamed, she pulled out her hair, her face was bright red, steam was coming out of her ears, she threw her dentures, etc...) We were so excited after Mr. Bildner's visit, that we came back and wrote until recess!
Here's what we did this week:
Reading: We learned about asking questions as we read. We practiced using books about the first Moon Landing in 1969 and a book about Ruby Bridges.
Writing: We are working on writing detailed leads and writing long and hard with our draft. Then rereading to revise. Next week we will choose another entry from our writer's notebook to take through the beginning of the writing process. We will then look at our two drafts and decide which one we want to publish.
Math: We are learning lots of multiplication strategies and practicing them using games. We are using mental math with larger numbers and appyling them to problem solving situations.
Social Studies: We are learning about Texas Regions, Native Americans, and Longitude and Latitude. The class is staying in their room and the teachers are rotating so each teacher will be in each classroom for a lesson. We've done 3 of these rotations so far and it has been great! We will be doing a Texas Cookie project next week on Friday and will need some supplies. Look for more information soon.
Monday is our first Pen Pal Field Trip and we are all very excited. The kids wrote great letters today and I will drop them off at The Court tomorrow.
Next Week is Education Go Get it Week.
Monday--"Step Up for Education"--Wear Tennis Shoes
Tuesday--"Show Your College Spirit"--Wear your favorite team t-shirt/jersey
Wednesday--"Hats off to College"--Wear your favorite team hat
Thursday--"Dress for Success"--Dress as your future profession
Friday--"Your Future is So BRIGHT!"--Wear sunglasses
Here are other dates to remember:
Oct. 4-Forest Creek Service Club Meeting in our classroom (512) from 2:45-3:30
Oct.5 SEPAC Monthly Parent Coffee (See Flyer)PTA Meeting in the library @ 6:30 pm
Oct. 6 1st Walk to School Wednesday, TAKS Accountability Review Meeting in the library @ 4:00 pm
Oct. 7 Pre K, Kinder, 1st, 3rd, and 5th Vision and Hearing Screening
Oct. 8 Pre K, Kinder, 1st, 3rd, and 5th Vision and Hearing Screening
Oct. 11 No School (Columbus Day)--Parent Teacher Conferences
Oct. 11- 15 Book Fair in the library
Oct. 29 Harvest Fest from 5-8 pm
FYI- if you have a Randalls Remarkable card, please take a minute to sign up for e-Labels for Education. FCE will receive 100pts per person. Lots easier than buying 100 cans of soup for 1 point each! Thank you for sending in Box Tops and Labels!
Have a wonderful weekend! Let me know if you have any concerns or questions. Thank you for sharing your children with me!
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Friday, September 17, 2010
Newsletter Week 4
Hi,
We had another good week. Listening to President Obama's speech was a big highlight and now we are writing letters to him. We also had our first early release day of the year.
Reading-We activated our prior knowledge by listing everything that we knew about sharks. Then we read an article about sharks and wrote about new information that we learned. We also confirmed some of our prior thinking and realized that some things that we thought were true about sharks were actually misconceptions. Then we read another magazine article about sharks and added to our new learning. We were so engaged as we practiced using other articles in our National Geographic Kids magazines. Today we read a book called The Mary Celeste: A Mystery from History. We listened to our inner conversations and wrote our questions and wonderings as we read. Ask your child about this mysterious ship and its disappearing crew. What do they think really happened?
Writing-The kids did a fantastic job telling their stories today. We began working on leads and drafted leads or ways to start our stories. We drafted action leads, dialogue leads, and setting leads then combined them to make specific, exciting beginnings. We also practiced zooming in our stories to tell the most important and exciting parts of our stories with lots of details and slowing down the action. We worked on showing what is happening with our words rather than just telling the read what is happening. (Instead of writing: I was nervous, writing: My heart was pounding and my hands were sweaty. etc...) Next week we will write our stories in our draft books and work on some revisions.
Math-We began working on multiplication concepts. We solved problems using drawings, skip counting, arrays, repeated addition, etc..... The children worked with a partner and completed an array project. All the arrays for a number were determined and displayed. (15-1x15, 3X5) We examined all of our displays and found some prime numbers (numbers with only 1x itself as factors) and some square numbers (16=4x4) We played some games to practice our facts and the concept of multiplication like Circle and Stars and Multiplication Mania. We will continue practice multiplication next week.
Social Studies-Maps were our focus this week. The students examined a map of Texas and we determined how Texas fits in the world on a map. (hemispheres, bordering states, etc....) We also used an atlas to figure out words on a chart were cities,states, countries, continents, and bodies of water. We will be learning about the regions of Texas, Native Americans in Texas, and longitude and latitude next week as we complete stations with the other fourth grade classes. The kids will be staying in one classroom and the teachers will rotate around the rooms to teach a different lesson each day. We will begin this on Tuesday.
Author Visit on Tuesday!- Phil Bildner will be here on Tuesday to talk to the fourth graders about writing! We are so excited to have him. If you'd like to order books, Mrs. Smith in the library will be accepting orders through Wednesday.
First Pen Pal Trip-Our first Pen Pal trip will be on Monday, September 27. We will be leaving FCE at about 9:20 and returning at about 11:00/11:15. If you would like to meet us there, feel free. We would love to have you! Look for permission slips this week.
Dates to Remember:
Sept. 21: New Comers Coffee in the PTA portable @ 10 am
Sept.24: Marathon Kids forms are due to the coaches
Sept. 27-Oct. 1: Education Go Get It Week
Monday--"Step Up for Education"--Wear Tennis Shoes
Tuesday--"Show Your College Spirit"--Wear your favorite team t-shirt/jersey
Wednesday--"Hats off to College"--Wear your favorite team hat
Thursday--"Dress for Success"--Dress as your future profession
Friday--"Your Future is So BRIGHT!"--Wear sunglasses
Oct.5: SEPAC Monthly Parent Coffee (See Flyer)
PTA Meeting in the library @ 6:30 pm
Oct. 6:1st Walk to School Wednesday
TAKS Accountability Review Meeting in the library @ 4:00 pm
Oct. 11: No School (Columbus Day)--Parent Teacher Conferences
Oct. 11- 15: Book Fair in the library
Oct. 29: Harvest Fest from 5-8 pm
Have a wonderful weekend and thank you for sharing your child with me. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Thank you,
Pam Bartholomew
We had another good week. Listening to President Obama's speech was a big highlight and now we are writing letters to him. We also had our first early release day of the year.
Reading-We activated our prior knowledge by listing everything that we knew about sharks. Then we read an article about sharks and wrote about new information that we learned. We also confirmed some of our prior thinking and realized that some things that we thought were true about sharks were actually misconceptions. Then we read another magazine article about sharks and added to our new learning. We were so engaged as we practiced using other articles in our National Geographic Kids magazines. Today we read a book called The Mary Celeste: A Mystery from History. We listened to our inner conversations and wrote our questions and wonderings as we read. Ask your child about this mysterious ship and its disappearing crew. What do they think really happened?
Writing-The kids did a fantastic job telling their stories today. We began working on leads and drafted leads or ways to start our stories. We drafted action leads, dialogue leads, and setting leads then combined them to make specific, exciting beginnings. We also practiced zooming in our stories to tell the most important and exciting parts of our stories with lots of details and slowing down the action. We worked on showing what is happening with our words rather than just telling the read what is happening. (Instead of writing: I was nervous, writing: My heart was pounding and my hands were sweaty. etc...) Next week we will write our stories in our draft books and work on some revisions.
Math-We began working on multiplication concepts. We solved problems using drawings, skip counting, arrays, repeated addition, etc..... The children worked with a partner and completed an array project. All the arrays for a number were determined and displayed. (15-1x15, 3X5) We examined all of our displays and found some prime numbers (numbers with only 1x itself as factors) and some square numbers (16=4x4) We played some games to practice our facts and the concept of multiplication like Circle and Stars and Multiplication Mania. We will continue practice multiplication next week.
Social Studies-Maps were our focus this week. The students examined a map of Texas and we determined how Texas fits in the world on a map. (hemispheres, bordering states, etc....) We also used an atlas to figure out words on a chart were cities,states, countries, continents, and bodies of water. We will be learning about the regions of Texas, Native Americans in Texas, and longitude and latitude next week as we complete stations with the other fourth grade classes. The kids will be staying in one classroom and the teachers will rotate around the rooms to teach a different lesson each day. We will begin this on Tuesday.
Author Visit on Tuesday!- Phil Bildner will be here on Tuesday to talk to the fourth graders about writing! We are so excited to have him. If you'd like to order books, Mrs. Smith in the library will be accepting orders through Wednesday.
First Pen Pal Trip-Our first Pen Pal trip will be on Monday, September 27. We will be leaving FCE at about 9:20 and returning at about 11:00/11:15. If you would like to meet us there, feel free. We would love to have you! Look for permission slips this week.
Dates to Remember:
Sept. 21: New Comers Coffee in the PTA portable @ 10 am
Sept.24: Marathon Kids forms are due to the coaches
Sept. 27-Oct. 1: Education Go Get It Week
Monday--"Step Up for Education"--Wear Tennis Shoes
Tuesday--"Show Your College Spirit"--Wear your favorite team t-shirt/jersey
Wednesday--"Hats off to College"--Wear your favorite team hat
Thursday--"Dress for Success"--Dress as your future profession
Friday--"Your Future is So BRIGHT!"--Wear sunglasses
Oct.5: SEPAC Monthly Parent Coffee (See Flyer)
PTA Meeting in the library @ 6:30 pm
Oct. 6:1st Walk to School Wednesday
TAKS Accountability Review Meeting in the library @ 4:00 pm
Oct. 11: No School (Columbus Day)--Parent Teacher Conferences
Oct. 11- 15: Book Fair in the library
Oct. 29: Harvest Fest from 5-8 pm
Have a wonderful weekend and thank you for sharing your child with me. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Thank you,
Pam Bartholomew
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Math and Writing Homework
Hi,
For homework in math, the kids are going to play a game with you or another person. It is called Circle and Stars and there should be directions in the backpack. .
There are two large pieces of construction paper. One is set up in an eight box grid and has a title box and a sample circle and stars. It also has numbers 1-5 on the other boxes for each round and a box for the players' scores. The paper with writing on it already is your child's paper. The blank one is for you or your child's partner to record his/her circle and stars. Each player uses a number cube to roll. If you don't have a number cube, please make paper numbers 1-12 and choose one instead of rolling. If you want harder multiplication problems, you can use paper numbers or two cubes and add them together.
Both of the large papers should return tomorrow after playing the game and recording the results.
Writing homework-The children should have each selected an entry from their writer's notebooks that they want to use to revise and possibly publish. They should have a paperclip on the page of the entry that they have chosen. The homework tonight is to storytell that story to at least three people at home. (one pet or object can be included but at least two have to be humans :) ) Here are the directions:
Storytelling, Over and Over
This afternoon on your way home from school or at home, retell your story again to yourself. Tell it to your mom, your sister, your brother, your dad, or to your friend. Think about your story too. Stories get much better if we play them over in our minds, trying to tell them in ways that really affect listeners and readers. Do you want to make people shiver with worry, laugh aloud, gasp, wince? Try telling your story so that you make listeners feel whatever it is you want them to feel.
Be sure that they are not summarizing about their story but saying it in the first person (using I, me, my etc...) and telling it with expression, drama and sound effects like a story teller. They should not read the entry to you but tell it from memory. It is fine if it is different with each telling. In fact, I bet the story will have more details, more feeling, and more life after several tellings.
Please sign in the writer's notebook that you listened to the story and feel free to include a comment for your storyteller.
Have fun with this! We will begin writing leads and our first draft of the story tomorrow and I am so excited!!!!!
I am also attaching a volunteer opportunity for your family, if you are interested.
Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Thanks,
Pam Bartholomew
For homework in math, the kids are going to play a game with you or another person. It is called Circle and Stars and there should be directions in the backpack. .
There are two large pieces of construction paper. One is set up in an eight box grid and has a title box and a sample circle and stars. It also has numbers 1-5 on the other boxes for each round and a box for the players' scores. The paper with writing on it already is your child's paper. The blank one is for you or your child's partner to record his/her circle and stars. Each player uses a number cube to roll. If you don't have a number cube, please make paper numbers 1-12 and choose one instead of rolling. If you want harder multiplication problems, you can use paper numbers or two cubes and add them together.
Both of the large papers should return tomorrow after playing the game and recording the results.
Writing homework-The children should have each selected an entry from their writer's notebooks that they want to use to revise and possibly publish. They should have a paperclip on the page of the entry that they have chosen. The homework tonight is to storytell that story to at least three people at home. (one pet or object can be included but at least two have to be humans :) ) Here are the directions:
Storytelling, Over and Over
This afternoon on your way home from school or at home, retell your story again to yourself. Tell it to your mom, your sister, your brother, your dad, or to your friend. Think about your story too. Stories get much better if we play them over in our minds, trying to tell them in ways that really affect listeners and readers. Do you want to make people shiver with worry, laugh aloud, gasp, wince? Try telling your story so that you make listeners feel whatever it is you want them to feel.
Be sure that they are not summarizing about their story but saying it in the first person (using I, me, my etc...) and telling it with expression, drama and sound effects like a story teller. They should not read the entry to you but tell it from memory. It is fine if it is different with each telling. In fact, I bet the story will have more details, more feeling, and more life after several tellings.
Please sign in the writer's notebook that you listened to the story and feel free to include a comment for your storyteller.
Have fun with this! We will begin writing leads and our first draft of the story tomorrow and I am so excited!!!!!
I am also attaching a volunteer opportunity for your family, if you are interested.
Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Thanks,
Pam Bartholomew
Author Visit on Tuesday-Phil Bildner
Next Tuesday, Phil Bildner, a famous children's author, will be coming to have a writing camp day with our fourth grade classes. In the children's Thursday folders is an order form with pictures of his books in case you would like to purchase one. He will sign them.
Mr. Bildner came last year and was wonderful! The children were engaged and very excited about writing.
I will be showing Mr. Bildner's website to the class tomorrow and we will read some of his books as a class and individually.
http://www.philbildner.com/index.html
Thanks,
Pam Bartholomew
Mr. Bildner came last year and was wonderful! The children were engaged and very excited about writing.
I will be showing Mr. Bildner's website to the class tomorrow and we will read some of his books as a class and individually.
http://www.philbildner.com/index.html
Thanks,
Pam Bartholomew
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
President Obama's Address to schoolchildren
Here is the link to see the presidential address from September 14, 2010. We watched it today in class and the students had wonderful responses to it. We will be writing letters to the President and the children will decide if they want to mail their letters to The White House.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2010/09/14/president-s-back-school-speech
Be sure to watch.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2010/09/14/president-s-back-school-speech
Be sure to watch.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Newsletter Week #3
Hello,
Your children are wonderful and we had a short but very productive week.
Reading-We discussed ways to monitor our comprehension as we read and fix-up strategies when we notice that we aren't quite understanding. We started some book club groups and practiced monitoring our comprehension while we read independently.
We also practiced leaving tracks of our thinking while we read magazine articles about Girls' Education and UNICEF, Saving Tigers, Cherokee Languages, and Testing. We talked in small groups and realized that when we are engaged and talking about our reading we understand and remember more. We read some non-fiction books on Thursday and Friday and noticed text features (photos, charts, captions, index, table of contents, glossary, maps, diagrams, etc...)and discussed their purposes in helping us understand the text. Listening to our inner conversation as we read helped us to notice when we learned something new. The children were so engaged and excited about the non-fiction books that they read. It was exciting to watch them.
Writing-In writing workshop, we have a mini-lesson, we all write while individual students conference with the teacher, and then we share our writing. We practiced ways to come up with ideas for our prewriting. (make a list of ideas, decide which one has lots of details that you can remember, then sketch out the story and begin writing)The class has been doing a wonderful job in our writer's workshop and have written many entries this week. They wrote a personal narrative entry about a special person, place, and item. Then we discussed ways to revise our entries by adding more details, zooming in to tell the most important parts of the story, and using descriptive language (similes, metaphors, sensory words, onomatopeia, alliteration, and lots of strong adjectives and adverbs). I love to read their writing.
Math-Place Value has been our focus. We have examined and worked with numbers up to 999,999,999. We have played games and solved problems finding the digit in a certain place value spot, comparing and ordering larger numbers and added and subtracted using large numbers in context. We enjoy sharing our strategies on the overhead and learning from each other. Our first math assessment was taken today and most of us did very well. We will be working with some computation strategies this week and continue with problem solving.
Science-Our plant/liquid experiment has been going well so far. All of the plants are growing but the plant that is being fed Dr. Pepper is a little bit taller than the others. We have been measuring them and feeding them each day. We have also been recording the data in our science notebooks. We also examined and sorted some shells and learned about different types of shells. A game called "Did you know..." was played to review the safety, science processes, and tools information for our assessment which wee took this afternoon. Next week we will be working on some Social Studies.
On Tuesday, we will be watching a taping of President Obama's address to school children. The live showing is during our lunch. Let me know if you don't want your child to watch the broadcast.
Reminder-Wednesday is an Early Release Day. Students will be released at 12:45.
Thank you for signing your child's reading log. The logs are due on Mondays with at least 100 hours read and a parent signature.
It was nice to see so many grandparents in school today. Come back anytime!
Have a wonderful weekend. Thank you for sharing your child with me. Let me know if you have an questions or concerns.
Your children are wonderful and we had a short but very productive week.
Reading-We discussed ways to monitor our comprehension as we read and fix-up strategies when we notice that we aren't quite understanding. We started some book club groups and practiced monitoring our comprehension while we read independently.
We also practiced leaving tracks of our thinking while we read magazine articles about Girls' Education and UNICEF, Saving Tigers, Cherokee Languages, and Testing. We talked in small groups and realized that when we are engaged and talking about our reading we understand and remember more. We read some non-fiction books on Thursday and Friday and noticed text features (photos, charts, captions, index, table of contents, glossary, maps, diagrams, etc...)and discussed their purposes in helping us understand the text. Listening to our inner conversation as we read helped us to notice when we learned something new. The children were so engaged and excited about the non-fiction books that they read. It was exciting to watch them.
Writing-In writing workshop, we have a mini-lesson, we all write while individual students conference with the teacher, and then we share our writing. We practiced ways to come up with ideas for our prewriting. (make a list of ideas, decide which one has lots of details that you can remember, then sketch out the story and begin writing)The class has been doing a wonderful job in our writer's workshop and have written many entries this week. They wrote a personal narrative entry about a special person, place, and item. Then we discussed ways to revise our entries by adding more details, zooming in to tell the most important parts of the story, and using descriptive language (similes, metaphors, sensory words, onomatopeia, alliteration, and lots of strong adjectives and adverbs). I love to read their writing.
Math-Place Value has been our focus. We have examined and worked with numbers up to 999,999,999. We have played games and solved problems finding the digit in a certain place value spot, comparing and ordering larger numbers and added and subtracted using large numbers in context. We enjoy sharing our strategies on the overhead and learning from each other. Our first math assessment was taken today and most of us did very well. We will be working with some computation strategies this week and continue with problem solving.
Science-Our plant/liquid experiment has been going well so far. All of the plants are growing but the plant that is being fed Dr. Pepper is a little bit taller than the others. We have been measuring them and feeding them each day. We have also been recording the data in our science notebooks. We also examined and sorted some shells and learned about different types of shells. A game called "Did you know..." was played to review the safety, science processes, and tools information for our assessment which wee took this afternoon. Next week we will be working on some Social Studies.
On Tuesday, we will be watching a taping of President Obama's address to school children. The live showing is during our lunch. Let me know if you don't want your child to watch the broadcast.
Reminder-Wednesday is an Early Release Day. Students will be released at 12:45.
Thank you for signing your child's reading log. The logs are due on Mondays with at least 100 hours read and a parent signature.
It was nice to see so many grandparents in school today. Come back anytime!
Have a wonderful weekend. Thank you for sharing your child with me. Let me know if you have an questions or concerns.
Friday, September 3, 2010
What a Wonderful Week 2!
Hi,
We had a wonderful week. We worked hard in all of our subject areas and even gained a new student!
Welcome to Jada! She has moved to Texas from Queens, New York. She is a great addition to our classroom and we are so happy that she is with us.
President Obama will be giving a Back to School Address to the school children of the country on Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2010. Last year, President Obama encouraged students to study hard, stay in school and take responsibility for their education. Our class will be watching the address. Any parent who objects to their child viewing the Presidential Address can request that they be excused from the activity by contacting me. More details on this year's Presidential speech will be announced soon. Once the President's speech is available Round Rock ISD will post a link to it on the district's Web site. Let me know what you think.
Reading-We practiced how to talk in small groups about books that we've read. We discussed genres of literature and will strive to independently read from each genre this year. We read a wonderful book together called How Many Days to America? by Eve Bunting. It is a moving story about a family who leaves their home in the Carribean suddenly to immigrate to the United States on a small boat. While we read we noticed our inner conversation and wrote about it in our reading response journals. We thought about the questions, connections, predictions, and feelings as we read and jotted them down in our journal. This is called leaving tracks of our thinking and helps us to be more engaged in our reading and increase our reading comprehension. We will continue doing this type of reading throughout the year.
Writing-We took a piece through the writing process this week. We learned about similes and metaphors then made a list of some of our talents and characteristics. We chose one and then thought about examples or ways to describe how that talent or characteristics pertain to us. We read a book called The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown to give us a template for our "Important Poems". We used our brainstorming ideas and the template to create rough drafts of our important poems. I conferenced one-on-one with each child and we revised the poem together. We added one more thing, adjusted the order or whatever to make the good poem even better. Then we edited the poem by correcting spelling, capitalization, grammar, etc... We then published our poem by writing it in our best handwriting and mounting it on paper with decorations. The poems were very expressive, used sensory details, contained similes and metaphors, and created great images for the reader. Be sure you read and enjoy them in the hallway.
Everyone did a nice job decorating their writer's notebook, also. Thank you for assisting at home.
Math-We have been working on place value and problem solving. We have played many games and experimenting with using different strategies to solve problems. Some of our favorite strategies were Guess and Check, Draw or Use Base Ten Blocks, use number line, draw pictures, use operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division), use symbols to represent place value, and use arrow paths and hundred boards. Wow!!!!! Your children are very creative and are using that creativity to explore with math concepts. We learned about the RUMOR steps for problem solving. This strategy helps kids remember how to approach word problems and get started. R=read the problem closely, U=underline the question, M=method: What is the problem asking us to do? What method or strategy will you use? Circle the important words in the problem. O=Operation: (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) Show all your work and solve it two ways. R=Reread teh question. Does your answer make sense? We practiced this with some problems and really worked on trying multiple strategies. Thank you for playing games and assisting with math homework as needed.
Science: We are doing demonstrations to explore the scientific process. We observed and wrote about a flour/color tile demo. We measured about 2 inches worth of flour in a container. Then dropped a color tile into the flour from various distances and observed what happened. Ask your kids about this. We also discussed safety in science. We made a class graph using the data that the children gathered at home. (Are you a square?) We wrote about the results of the graph. We also examined and made inferences about magazine advertisements. We will be conducting a class experiment next week. The experiment came up in our read-aloud book, The Year of the Dog. The character had done an experiment in which she had several plants and fed the plants with various liquids to see which one helped the plant grow best. In the book, Ginger Ale was most effective. We will try a few other liquids suggested by the class and see if we can replicate this study. It will also help us realize what a science project contains. The students will be required to complete a science project this year and this will be a model for them.
Watch D.O.G.S.- We love to have Dad volunteers at school. If you would like to be one of our Watch DOGS or want to learn more about the program, come to a meeting on Tuesday, September 7 before the PTA meeting. Pizza will be served so please RSVP to me so that I can let the office know.
Back to School Night Powerpoint-The Fourth grade Back to School Night Powerpoint is now on our class blog. Check it out. Go to our Forest Creek website, our teams, Fourth Grade, Pam Bartholomew. Feel free to become a follower of our site, leave a comment, or encourage your children to leave a comment. We will be doing this in class soon.
Dates to Remember:
Sept. 6 Labor Day Holiday--No School
Sept. 7 Reading Logs due (at least 100 min. and parent signature)
Sept. 7 First Lego League Applications are due
6:00 - 6:30: WatchDOGS Kickoff in the library!
6:30 PTA Meeting in the library
Sept. 9 First Lego League Meeting @ 3:00 in
First Lego League Parent Meeting @ 4:30-5:00
BoyScout Meeting in the Cafeteria @ 6:30 pm
Sept. 10 Grandparents Day
First Spelling test of the year
Sept. 13 Book Orders Due
Sept. 15 Early Release Day @ 12:45 pm
Sept. 27 Service Learning Pen Pal Trip to The Court Retirement Facility-More details to come
Have a relaxing and safe holiday!
Thank you for sharing your children with me. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Sincerly,
Pam Bartholomew
We had a wonderful week. We worked hard in all of our subject areas and even gained a new student!
Welcome to Jada! She has moved to Texas from Queens, New York. She is a great addition to our classroom and we are so happy that she is with us.
President Obama will be giving a Back to School Address to the school children of the country on Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2010. Last year, President Obama encouraged students to study hard, stay in school and take responsibility for their education. Our class will be watching the address. Any parent who objects to their child viewing the Presidential Address can request that they be excused from the activity by contacting me. More details on this year's Presidential speech will be announced soon. Once the President's speech is available Round Rock ISD will post a link to it on the district's Web site. Let me know what you think.
Reading-We practiced how to talk in small groups about books that we've read. We discussed genres of literature and will strive to independently read from each genre this year. We read a wonderful book together called How Many Days to America? by Eve Bunting. It is a moving story about a family who leaves their home in the Carribean suddenly to immigrate to the United States on a small boat. While we read we noticed our inner conversation and wrote about it in our reading response journals. We thought about the questions, connections, predictions, and feelings as we read and jotted them down in our journal. This is called leaving tracks of our thinking and helps us to be more engaged in our reading and increase our reading comprehension. We will continue doing this type of reading throughout the year.
Writing-We took a piece through the writing process this week. We learned about similes and metaphors then made a list of some of our talents and characteristics. We chose one and then thought about examples or ways to describe how that talent or characteristics pertain to us. We read a book called The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown to give us a template for our "Important Poems". We used our brainstorming ideas and the template to create rough drafts of our important poems. I conferenced one-on-one with each child and we revised the poem together. We added one more thing, adjusted the order or whatever to make the good poem even better. Then we edited the poem by correcting spelling, capitalization, grammar, etc... We then published our poem by writing it in our best handwriting and mounting it on paper with decorations. The poems were very expressive, used sensory details, contained similes and metaphors, and created great images for the reader. Be sure you read and enjoy them in the hallway.
Everyone did a nice job decorating their writer's notebook, also. Thank you for assisting at home.
Math-We have been working on place value and problem solving. We have played many games and experimenting with using different strategies to solve problems. Some of our favorite strategies were Guess and Check, Draw or Use Base Ten Blocks, use number line, draw pictures, use operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division), use symbols to represent place value, and use arrow paths and hundred boards. Wow!!!!! Your children are very creative and are using that creativity to explore with math concepts. We learned about the RUMOR steps for problem solving. This strategy helps kids remember how to approach word problems and get started. R=read the problem closely, U=underline the question, M=method: What is the problem asking us to do? What method or strategy will you use? Circle the important words in the problem. O=Operation: (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) Show all your work and solve it two ways. R=Reread teh question. Does your answer make sense? We practiced this with some problems and really worked on trying multiple strategies. Thank you for playing games and assisting with math homework as needed.
Science: We are doing demonstrations to explore the scientific process. We observed and wrote about a flour/color tile demo. We measured about 2 inches worth of flour in a container. Then dropped a color tile into the flour from various distances and observed what happened. Ask your kids about this. We also discussed safety in science. We made a class graph using the data that the children gathered at home. (Are you a square?) We wrote about the results of the graph. We also examined and made inferences about magazine advertisements. We will be conducting a class experiment next week. The experiment came up in our read-aloud book, The Year of the Dog. The character had done an experiment in which she had several plants and fed the plants with various liquids to see which one helped the plant grow best. In the book, Ginger Ale was most effective. We will try a few other liquids suggested by the class and see if we can replicate this study. It will also help us realize what a science project contains. The students will be required to complete a science project this year and this will be a model for them.
Watch D.O.G.S.- We love to have Dad volunteers at school. If you would like to be one of our Watch DOGS or want to learn more about the program, come to a meeting on Tuesday, September 7 before the PTA meeting. Pizza will be served so please RSVP to me so that I can let the office know.
Back to School Night Powerpoint-The Fourth grade Back to School Night Powerpoint is now on our class blog. Check it out. Go to our Forest Creek website, our teams, Fourth Grade, Pam Bartholomew. Feel free to become a follower of our site, leave a comment, or encourage your children to leave a comment. We will be doing this in class soon.
Dates to Remember:
Sept. 6 Labor Day Holiday--No School
Sept. 7 Reading Logs due (at least 100 min. and parent signature)
Sept. 7 First Lego League Applications are due
6:00 - 6:30: WatchDOGS Kickoff in the library!
6:30 PTA Meeting in the library
Sept. 9 First Lego League Meeting @ 3:00 in
First Lego League Parent Meeting @ 4:30-5:00
BoyScout Meeting in the Cafeteria @ 6:30 pm
Sept. 10 Grandparents Day
First Spelling test of the year
Sept. 13 Book Orders Due
Sept. 15 Early Release Day @ 12:45 pm
Sept. 27 Service Learning Pen Pal Trip to The Court Retirement Facility-More details to come
Have a relaxing and safe holiday!
Thank you for sharing your children with me. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Sincerly,
Pam Bartholomew
Friday, August 27, 2010
First Week of Fourth Grade!
We had a fabulous first week of fourth grade.
Reading: We practiced the components of the Reading Workshop. We practiced writing responses to our independent reading by writing about our predictions, connections, questions, and feelings about the book.
Writing: We practiced the components of the Writing Workshop. We also told stories using our Texas photos and will also be using the photos to write these stories. We learned about our writer’s notebooks and we each have an assignment which is to decorate our writer’s notebooks. The rubric is in their binders at the decorated writer’s notebook is due on Wednesday, September 1. Be sure that your child’s writer’s notebook is in school each day. We talked about living a writer’s life which means we are observant and notice things and then write about what we noticed. We did that at recess and they wrote poetic and wonderful entries!
Math: We are working with place value using our 1,000 books. We will be using them for games for practice as well as for problem solving problems. We will continue with place value next week and use lots of strategies to solve problems.
Science: We learned about some safety symbols and will be talking about the scientific process next week.
Social Studies: We practiced using symbolic representations by creating bioglyphs of ourselves then used the key to try to figure out who was who.
Back to School Night=Thursday, September 2, 2010 from 6:00-6:45pm. We will be meeting in the cafeteria and then going to our classroom for a few minutes. This night is for parents and I look forward to seeing you there.
We went to the library today and checked out some books. Our regular library day will be Mondays. However, we won’t go this Monday since we were just there and next Monday is Labor Day. We will try to go each Monday after that for check out times.
Reading Logs are due on Monday. Each student is expected to read at least 100 minutes.
Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns.
Have a wonderful weekend! I had a great time getting to know your children. It is going to be an amazing year!
Thanks,
Pam Bartholomew
Reading: We practiced the components of the Reading Workshop. We practiced writing responses to our independent reading by writing about our predictions, connections, questions, and feelings about the book.
Writing: We practiced the components of the Writing Workshop. We also told stories using our Texas photos and will also be using the photos to write these stories. We learned about our writer’s notebooks and we each have an assignment which is to decorate our writer’s notebooks. The rubric is in their binders at the decorated writer’s notebook is due on Wednesday, September 1. Be sure that your child’s writer’s notebook is in school each day. We talked about living a writer’s life which means we are observant and notice things and then write about what we noticed. We did that at recess and they wrote poetic and wonderful entries!
Math: We are working with place value using our 1,000 books. We will be using them for games for practice as well as for problem solving problems. We will continue with place value next week and use lots of strategies to solve problems.
Science: We learned about some safety symbols and will be talking about the scientific process next week.
Social Studies: We practiced using symbolic representations by creating bioglyphs of ourselves then used the key to try to figure out who was who.
Back to School Night=Thursday, September 2, 2010 from 6:00-6:45pm. We will be meeting in the cafeteria and then going to our classroom for a few minutes. This night is for parents and I look forward to seeing you there.
We went to the library today and checked out some books. Our regular library day will be Mondays. However, we won’t go this Monday since we were just there and next Monday is Labor Day. We will try to go each Monday after that for check out times.
Reading Logs are due on Monday. Each student is expected to read at least 100 minutes.
Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns.
Have a wonderful weekend! I had a great time getting to know your children. It is going to be an amazing year!
Thanks,
Pam Bartholomew
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Wonderful First Day of Fourth Grade!
Hello,
I had a fantastic day with our wonderful class today. The other teachers may get annoyed with me because I was bragging like crazy about our super students. We are a little chatty but everyone quieted down when asked. We all worked hard and showed creativity. We wrote stories about a time when we had "the jitters" after reading a book called, First Day Jitters. We read and recited a wonderful poem by Maya Angelou called I Love the Look of Words. We solved a fun but challenging math problem and shared some very inventive and effective strategies. We also wrote about what we know, love, and want to learn about science. We were busy and had fun.
I am looking forward to even more excited days ahead.
Students and Parents: Feel free to write a comment on our blog. Kids: be sure to only use your first name and write a blog comment with your parent's permission.
Thank you for sharing your children with me! Contact me with any questions or concerns.
I had a fantastic day with our wonderful class today. The other teachers may get annoyed with me because I was bragging like crazy about our super students. We are a little chatty but everyone quieted down when asked. We all worked hard and showed creativity. We wrote stories about a time when we had "the jitters" after reading a book called, First Day Jitters. We read and recited a wonderful poem by Maya Angelou called I Love the Look of Words. We solved a fun but challenging math problem and shared some very inventive and effective strategies. We also wrote about what we know, love, and want to learn about science. We were busy and had fun.
I am looking forward to even more excited days ahead.
Students and Parents: Feel free to write a comment on our blog. Kids: be sure to only use your first name and write a blog comment with your parent's permission.
Thank you for sharing your children with me! Contact me with any questions or concerns.
Monday, August 23, 2010
School Starts Tomorrow! Yeah!!!!!
Here are some things to know for our first day of fourth grade:
*Come to our classroom (room 512) in the morning. We will line up in the hallway on the floor and read quietly until 7:30 am when we will enter our room and begin.
*Bring a healthy snack. We will be eating snack at 10:25 during our recess time. We will go outside with our snacks, eat and walk two laps around the track, then play.
*I would encourage your child to bring a water bottle to class each day. (Preferably a refillable one)Be sure that it has a lid.
*A sweatshirt or light jacket is also recommended for our classroom. Some days our room is hot and others it is pretty chilly. You can leave a jacket on your hook.
*Bring a book to read.
*Bring a photo of you somewhere in Texas.
*Return forms that were in our Beginning of the Year envelope.
*We have PE every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Be sure to wear tennis shoes.
*Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
*Try to get to bed early and be ready for a fabulous day!!!
Thanks and I will see you tomorrow.
*Come to our classroom (room 512) in the morning. We will line up in the hallway on the floor and read quietly until 7:30 am when we will enter our room and begin.
*Bring a healthy snack. We will be eating snack at 10:25 during our recess time. We will go outside with our snacks, eat and walk two laps around the track, then play.
*I would encourage your child to bring a water bottle to class each day. (Preferably a refillable one)Be sure that it has a lid.
*A sweatshirt or light jacket is also recommended for our classroom. Some days our room is hot and others it is pretty chilly. You can leave a jacket on your hook.
*Bring a book to read.
*Bring a photo of you somewhere in Texas.
*Return forms that were in our Beginning of the Year envelope.
*We have PE every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Be sure to wear tennis shoes.
*Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
*Try to get to bed early and be ready for a fabulous day!!!
Thanks and I will see you tomorrow.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Welcome to Fourth Grade!
Friday, August 20, 2010 is our Supply Drop-off/Meet the Teacher Evening! I will have our classroom ready and will be looking forward to seeing our new students. I had a wonderful summer but am very excited to begin our new school year.
Think about any questions that you may have about fourth grade. Explore our blog. Feel free to post a comment and respond to each others comments. We will be using our class blog throughout the year to share ideas and communicate with our parents and each other.
Be sure to take our poll: What is your favorite subject in school?
Don't forget to click on Bandit, our virtual bat pet. He will follow your mouse and he is very cute.
Happy Blogging and I can't wait to see all of you!
Think about any questions that you may have about fourth grade. Explore our blog. Feel free to post a comment and respond to each others comments. We will be using our class blog throughout the year to share ideas and communicate with our parents and each other.
Be sure to take our poll: What is your favorite subject in school?
Don't forget to click on Bandit, our virtual bat pet. He will follow your mouse and he is very cute.
Happy Blogging and I can't wait to see all of you!
Monday, June 21, 2010
Great ideas for practicing grammar in motivating and authentic ways
I love teaching writing to my fourth graders but I don't love teaching grammar. Practicing with DOLs or correcting mistakes in sentences doesn't seem to transfer to the students' actual writing. A friend of mine (Thanks, Kari Maurer!) told me about Jeff Anderson and his book, Everyday Editing. This book discusses a better way to teach grammar by looking at what is correct in a sentence instead of fixing mistakes. He extends that idea into sentences written by the students. I am ordering his book to learn more for the fall but will be reading his website: http://www.writeguy.net/ until the book comes in the mail and using the blog: http://www.greatsentences.blogspot.com/ to find useful sentences for my class to use to practice. This blog hasn't been updated in a long time but I think that it will be a great resource for me and my team in the fall. Let me know what you think.
Math Blogs Galore!
While looking for a quality math blog, I found http://letsplaymath.net/ which led me to many, many more math blogs!
This particular blog seemed very kid/parent/teacher friendly which is awesome and linked to some great online games. I really love the free rice games-http://www.freerice.com/index.php?&t=400292116800&s=Multiplication%20Table. You practice math, grammar, geography, etc...For every correct answer, the website donates 10 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program.
I also loved reading the posts from Math Mama on her blog. Let me know what you think about these math blogs and how they were useful (or could be useful) to you.
This particular blog seemed very kid/parent/teacher friendly which is awesome and linked to some great online games. I really love the free rice games-http://www.freerice.com/index.php?&t=400292116800&s=Multiplication%20Table. You practice math, grammar, geography, etc...For every correct answer, the website donates 10 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program.
I also loved reading the posts from Math Mama on her blog. Let me know what you think about these math blogs and how they were useful (or could be useful) to you.
Reading Rocks!
The http://www.best-childrens-books.com/children-s-books-blog.html blog looks very useful for me to use for my children and my students, for kids to access (especially the free on-line reading link) and for parents to check out. Let me know what you think and if you found it worthwhile.
Science Blog-Great videos and experiments
I am looking forward to following this blog to find cool science activities to use this summer with my daughters and to use this school year with my class! I think it will also be great for parents and kids to go to this blog and find their own exciting science to do at home. Check it out (stevespangler.com) and let me know what you've found. Share other great science blogs and sites also.
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