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
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