Bartholomew Bats!


Our school is located in Round Rock, Texas which is near Austin. Austin and Round Rock both have huge populations of Mexican Free Tailed Bats that live under our bridges. A colony of bats lives beneath the Ann Richards/Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin and in Round Rock, another colony resides under the Interstate 35 bridge over McNeil Road. Each evening from March to about October, the bats fly out from beneath the bridge and search for insects to eat. The emergence of the bats is a wonder to watch. We are also thankful that all these millions of bats eat the bugs by our homes.

Our class mascot is the Bat to honor the mammals that live so close to us and help us. (also because Bat and Bartholomew both start with the letter B!) The bats in Central Texas live together in a group and help take care of the young. Then they migrate together as a team. Our class will also live together in our classroom, work together as a team, and help each other out. We are the Bartholomew Bats!





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
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