Abraham Lincoln Visited on Friday!

Hi,

We had a very fun week and a very exciting day! We had a visit from Abraham Lincoln. He came and spoke to the 4th graders about his life and answered their questions. It was very cool to speak with Honest Abe!

Red Ribbon Week was fun! We had two winners in the essay/poster contest. Rylee won first place for her poster and Savanna won 2nd place for her essay. Congratulations to them and to all our students who wrote great essays! We loved wearing our pajamas on Thursday, our hats on Wednesday, our sunglasses on Tuesday, and our sports jerseys on Monday. We also talked about making good choices, heard a speaker talk about alcohol use, and watched a drug free video. Our theme on Friday was Coyotes "can" be drug free. We are collecting canned goods. Students will receive a ticket for each can that they bring to school next week. (I think it goes through the week but may only be for the beginning of the week) Then there will be drawings for Cinemark passes. Bring more cans, have more chances to win. The cans will be donated to the Round Rock Serving Center.

The Service Club will be accepting donations for the Round Rock Serving Center for the entire year. Bring in canned food, toiletries, clothing, toys, books, etc... and we will be taking the donated items to the Serving Center once a month. The club members (and anyone else who likes helping others) will be stocking shelves, organizing donations, etc... from 10:00-11:00am on the first Saturday of every month. Our first trip will be on Saturday, November 5. We would love to have you meet us there and help. Let me know if you are able to come so that we can give an estimate to the manager there so that they can have jobs ready for us. All are welcome!!!!!

Passport to Adventure: Literacy Night was a huge success! We had hundreds of people attend on Thursday evening. They enjoyed hearing books and stories from all around the world. The Ballet Folklorico dancers were amazing! Thank you to all those who were able to attend.

Writing Club is beginning this Thursday in the library from 2:45pm -4:00pm. Pick up in the front of the school. We will be learning about the craft of writing, writing pieces of our choice, conferencing with teachers about our writing, and sharing our writing with others. It is so much fun and I am so excited to be a part of our Writing Club. I love to share writing with our wonderful FCE students. Writing Club is great for writers at all levels. If you have any questions, contact me or Jenny Peterson.

Read about our week:

Reading: We read about Native Americans in Texas and worked on main idea, details, and summarizing. In book club groups, we have been working on describing characters and changes that characters go through in a story. Today we finished our read aloud, Out of my Mind. We talked about how we are a bit sad when we finish great books because the characters become like our friends and we miss them. We will talk about a new novel to begin reading next week.

Writing: We read more poetry and discussed the importance of word choice. We wrote down interesting words, phrases, and sentences and tried to incorporate more descriptive words into some of our poems. We worked on (and almost finished) our class book project. The book will be mailed on Thursday. Please return the order form signed whether you'd like to purchase a book or not. If I prove to the printing company that I gave you an opportunity to buy a book by returning your forms with yes or no and a signature, then our class gets a free book. Please return the forms by Wednesday. In the spring, each child will create a hard cover anthology of their writing throughout the year. You will receive a free copy of this book and may purchase more copies as well. If you have any questions about our class book, let me know.

Math: Patterns, algebraic equations, input/output charts, and elapsed time have been practiced this week. We will continue to work on problem solving and more multiplication strategies next week.

Science: We finished up learning about mixtures and solutions and had an assessment on Thursday. Our next unit will be Force, Motion, and Energy.

Social Studies: We are finishing up our studies of Native Americans in Texas and will begin learning about explorers next week.

Have a wonderful weekend! Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew

Red Ribbon Week is Here!

Hi,

We worked very hard this week. We presented our Native American presentations and performed some exciting poetry readings. We also solved some challenging math problems. It was an awesome week!

This week is Red Ribbon Week! Here are the themes for each day:
Monday-Winners Don't Do Drugs-wear sports team jersey
Tuesday-Too Cool to do Drugs-wear your sunglasses
Wednesday-Hats Off to a Drug-Free Life-Hat Day
Thursday-Follow your Dreams-Pajama Day
Friday-Coyotes CAN be Drug Free-Wear your Forest Creek Shirt and bring in a canned good to donate

Our class is participating in the October Essay contest. Each student has written a rough draft on bullying. We have been revising and editing and will be completing the final copies on Monday to turn in. Your child can create a poster based on bullying prevention or one of the themes for Red Ribbon Week for the poster contest. Your child may also want to write another essay for Red Ribbon Week. The essays and posters are due on Monday, October 24.

Forest Creek is also having their book fair in the library this week. Come and do some Christmas shopping and raise money for our school. The book fair will be open late on Thursday evening.

Thursday evening is our Passport to Adventure Literacy Night beginning at 5:00 pm. Admission fee is a book to donate (new or gently used). When you donate a book, you receive your passport. Visit each continent, listen to books, and see cultural presentations. Ballet Folklorico will be performing at 6:30 in the cafeteria. Promise Pizza will be selling yummy pizza slices for $1 and the FCE Relay for Life Team will be selling sweet treats to raise money for cancer research. Feel free to donate more than just one book. The children will get to choose a book to take home and any extra books will be taken to the Round Rock Serving Center for their Thrift Store. The FCE Book Fair will be open during Literacy Night. Join us for a wonderful night of cultural awareness and literacy!

Read about our week:

Reading: We continued to read poems and used the poem Dreams by Langston Hughes to make inferences and determine a possible theme. We wrote autobiographical poems and read poetry aloud with expression and actions. This week we will be reading about Explorers and integrating subjects by using reading skills to understand social studies content.

Writing: Poems were written and shared. We also worked on our bullying essays. We will be rereading our poems and choosing one to add to our published class poetry book. The book will be filled with poems written and illustrated by our class! The books will be hardbound and available for purchase. Order forms will be coming home this week. Please return the order form with your signature whether you'd like a book or not so that we can receive a free class book. We will also be writing individual books in the spring. These will also be hardbound and each child will get one book for free and may purchase more copies.

Math: Patterns and algebraic equations were challenging and fun this week. Many of the children are getting this and some are still working on mastering this concept. We will continue with patterns, input/output charts, and equations this week and throughout the year. We will also be working on elapsed time this week.

Science: We started learning about mixtures and solutions this week. Ask your child about our popcorn and water mixture. We also separated a beach mixture using tools. We took out pebbles and shells using our fingers and/or a spoon. We used a colander to separate the small pebbles from the salt water and sand. A coffee filter in the colander was necessary to separate the sand from the salt water. A hot plate was used to heat the water so that it would evaporate and the salt crystals would be left behind. We will be learning more about this topic this week. A study guide came home on Friday and we will be having a test on this material on Thursday.

Dates to remember:
Sunday,October 23-Texas Book Festival at the Capitol downtown
Tuesday, October 25-Service Club meeting after school
Wednesday, October 26-Early Release Day at 12:45 pm
Thursday, October 27-Science test on Mixtures and Solutions
Passport to Adventure: Literacy Night 5pm
November 3-PTA Reflections projects are due to Mrs. Arnold
November 4-Walk for Diabetes-envelopes are due as well

Have a wonderful weekend! Enjoy the beautiful weather and all the festivals! Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew

Wonderful 1st Visit with our Pen Pals!

Hi,

We had a great first meeting with our Pen Pals. The kids were very flexible because there were some last minute changes and they were VERY polite, kind, and completely engaged with our new friends from The Court Assisted Living Facility. The pen pals had huge smiles and were excited to meet and talk with your kids. There were lots of stories being told, games being played (bingo, dominoes, memory, checkers, etc..) and some creating with play dough. The kids also shared their personal narratives with their pen pals. It was a wonderful visit for all of us. Thank you to the parents who came and helped. We will be writing more letters soon and discussing our interview answers. The pen pals will be visiting again in November.

Reading: This week in reading we began learning about poetry. We read a lyrical and free verse poem and discussed their similarities and differences. We discussed how poetry can be interpreted in different ways and watched two videos of the same poem with completely different interpretations. Watch and compare. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x587PpF-J1Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1I4uaRt6bMThe kids were very surprised by the second one! We also read a poem about the Moon and learned about personification and how readers ask lots of questions, make predictions, make connections, and have thoughts and feelings as they read poetry just like when they read fiction and nonfiction. We will continue to read poems next week and even write some poetry.

Writing: We completed our first published piece this week and had a fun Author's Celebration. Thank you to all the parents who could attend our celebration. Many of the children were nervous about reading but we heard lots of examples of great leads, small moment stories, good sequencing, and good details. A lot of students slowed down their most important part of the story to build suspense and make the reader feel like they were right there and many of our endings really pulled the story together and gave some closure. Great job for our first personal narratives of the year! We will be writing some poetry and working on some essays about bullying and our Native American Tribes.

Math: We are practicing input/output tables and looking for mathematical patterns. We are beginning to create algebraic equations as well. We are using multiple strategies for problem solving and sharing those strategies with each other. Continue to practice using strategies to solve problems using multiplication, addition, and subtraction.

Social Studies: Native American research and projects are going well. We are trying hard to finish by Monday or Tuesday of next week then we will work on mixtures and solutions in science.

I enjoyed talking with all of you at conferences. Be sure to let me know if you have any concerns or questions. Email is always the best way to reach me.

Dates to remember:
Monday, October 17-2:45-3:15 Running Club-Email me to let me know if your child is staying.Pick up by the playground
Wednesday, October 19-Water Experiment Paper is due
October 24-28-Red Ribbon Week & Book Fair in the library
Thursday, October 27-Passport to Adventure Literacy Night 5-8pm
November 1-11=Annual Food Drive for the Round Rock Serving Center
Thursday, November 3-Reflections due to Mrs. Arnold

Have an amazing weekend! Thank you for sharing your children with me.

Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew

Newsletter

Hi,

Wow! We started working on our projects for our Native American research. Your children worked together and solved disagreements together and decided on interesting projects then got to work. I was impressed with their creativity and how engaged they were in their work. Some of the groups are making power points, some making dioramas, and some are creating plays and songs. We are going to try to finish them by next Friday. I will take photos to share and video of the plays. I can't wait to see these projects!

Pen Pals are coming next Friday!
We are very excited to meet our pen pals and will be planning our activities this week. Our pen pals are residents at The Court in Round Rock Assisted Living Facility and we will be interviewing them about their childhoods, learning from each other, and playing games. They will be arriving at about 9:30 am in the library and will be staying for about an hour. Feel free to come and enjoy our pen pals with us!

Conferences
Just about all of us have a conference time set up next week. This conference is a goal setting conference so your child should be present. We will be sharing some work that your child has completed so far and talk about areas for improvement and goals for this year. I look forward to meeting with you all!

Reading
This week in reading we read The Story of Ruby Bridges together and worked on asking questions to gain information. We applied this to Native Americans in Texas research that we are doing. Everyone also has a novel that they are reading in school as well. We have begun meeting in book club groups to share our questions, inferences, thoughts, and feelings about our book. Before each meeting, we read and write responses in our book club section of our reader's response books. Then we share our thinking in our meetings. It is wonderful to hear such excitement and enjoyment over sharing our thoughts about our books. Next week we will be looking at poetry.

Writing
In writing we are working hard to finish writing a second story in our draftbooks. Then the children examine both of their personal narratives and decide which one they want to publish at this time. Then we rewrite the draft and begin more revising. We add some show, not tell. (Use lots of descriptions and details to make the reader feel that they are there with the writer, instead of just telling the reader.) We are still planning to have our Author's Celebration on Wednesday, October 12. Some of us may not have our completely done and pretty final copy ready but will have a great personal narrative to share with you. We hope that you can come!

Math
We are continuing to work on strategies for multiplication. We practiced the double, double strategy in computation and in problem solving situations. We played games using multiples of 10 in multiplication and sang Three is a Magic Number with the Schoolhouse Rock video. We share lots of strategies for our problem solving using the document camera so your child is experiencing many different strategies to use when solving problems and hopefully finding some that work best for him/her. Continue to talk about math situations at home. Use time, money, fact practice, skip counting etc... in games and in the car to practice. Next week we will do some patterns and algebraic reasoning.

Science
Changes from Heat was our topic. We experimented with evaporation by painting with water on the blacktop. We learned about melting by melting some crayon pieces in the sun. (Thank you Madi for sharing your melted crayon experiment that you did at home! Very cool!) We also experimented with freezing by putting a water balloon in the freezer and seeing what would happen. We studied using games, songs, and websites on Stemscopes and did well on our assessment. Next we will be learning about mixtures and solutions.

Social Studies
The children are in cooperative groups and each group is researching a Texas Tribe. We thought about questions that we wanted to answer in our research and are looking in books and on two websites to find information. We are writing down our sources to use in a bibliography and are going to present our information in a creative way. Each child will also write a Native American essay to practice our expository writing.

Dates to remember:
Monday, October 10=No school for students, Parent/Child/Teacher Conferences
Tuesday, October 11=Service Club Meeting
Wednesday, October 12=Individual Picture Day at 10:40
Author's Celebration at 2:00pm in our classroom
Thursday, October 13-Conferences
Friday, October 14=Pen Pal Visit at 9:30 am in FCE library

Have a wonderful weekend! Don't miss the Chalk Walk on Main Street in Round Rock on Saturday!

Let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Thank you for sharing your child with me.

Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew