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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Back to School Night 4th Grade Powerpoint Presentation

Parent information night

View more presentations from prbartholomew.

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