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.