Back to School NIght on Thurs. Sept. 6 at 6 pm, Decorated Writer's Notebook due on Tuesday

Hi,

We had a marvelous first week of school. We practiced routines and expectations but began some great learning as well.

Reading-We are working on reading longer and stronger. That means spending more time accurately reading books at our reading level that interest us. I have been so impressed with the amount of time we have been able to read and stay focused this week. We have increased our time each day. On Monday we read for 10 minutes, discussed what we read, and then read for 10 more minutes. Today we read for 43 minutes! While the children read, I am doing individual reading assessments and will soon be working with small groups or having individual reading conferences.

Writing-Vocabulary is a big focus in each subject area. We learned the word persevere and then applied it to a reflection writing entry about a Wilma Rudolph quote. "The potential for greatness lives within each of us." The children wrote about times that they worked hard to reach their potential and had to persevere during that process. We will continue to work on revising these entries. We also started an acrostic poem that describes us. We learned about similes, metaphors, and exploding the moment. We will be applying these writing techniques to Important Poems that we write about ourselves that we will begin writing on Tuesday.

Math-Our class is full of mathematicians! We solved a challenging math problem and had tons of unique and effective strategies for the same problem. Logic problems are fun for us to solve and we enjoyed solving one about children trying out for sports teams. Most of us are very good at computing addition and subtraction facts. We had fun working with large numbers this week also. Thank you for helping with the Large Number Facts homework. We learned many random and interesting facts. (ex. Taylor Swift's salary, prices of many mansions and sports cars, the number of micro-organisms in our intestines, volume of salvia produced in a person's lifetime, the weight of the largest Rice Krispy treat, and many more!) We used base ten materials to represent numbers up to the thousands. To try to visualize larger numbers, we used butcher paper and cut out 10 thousand cubes which made a 10,000 long strip, then put 10 of the 10,000 strips together to show 100,000 squares. Next we put ten 100,000 squares together to show 1,000,000! We taped our display in the hallway across from the counselor's office. Come and see it! Next week we will continue to work with ordering and problem solving using large numbers.

Social Studies-The Texas photos brought in by the class are wonderful. We each shared our photos and found the locations on the map. Then wrote about our photo. They are displayed outside our classroom.

Science-We started working on some science safety things today. We will be continuing learning about science safety and tools next week.

Please return papers from the big envelope ASAP. Thanks!

If you have a minute, please go to the counselor's page on our website and fill out a survey. http://teacherweb.com/TX/ForestCreekElementary/Leitch/apt1.aspx

Thank you for the wonderful letters describing your child. It is so great to read them and learn more about how we can work together to challenge your child and help him/her grow this year.

Reminders:
Tuesday, Sept. 4-Decorated Writer's Notebooks due
Thursday, Sept. 6 - Back to School Night at 6:00pm
Friday, Sept. 7-Spirit Day-Wear green, purple, or FCE shirt
Monday, Sept. 10-College Day-Wear a shirt from your favorite college
Tuesday, Sept. 11-PTA meeting, Watchdogs kick-off
Friday, Sept. 28- Book Orders due

Have a safe and fun long weekend! Your child should read and record, decorate his/her writer's notebook, and practice math facts.

Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew

Great First Day of 4th Grade!

Hi,

We had a wonderful first day!  We started off with a read-aloud of an easy book called The Okay Book  which helped us to realize that we are all different and like various things and that is ok.  We thought about things that we are good at doing and things that we still need to work on and shared some of those things with each other.  A big theme in our class is to be respectful, accepting, and helpful to others.  We did a great job acting in that way today.

I love to read and I would like the kids to have a passion for reading after this year.  (Some of them already have developed that passion!)  We will be reading A LOT in school and they are all expected to read even more at home.  They will be able to choose most of the books that they read (especially at home) and should be reading books at their level.  I do want them to work toward reading more chapter books and completing them.  We are going to be very diligent about recording our reading at home and at school on our reading logs in our purple folders.  

You may have noticed the jumbo plastic bag in your child's back pack.  This bag will come back and forth from home to school each day.  Your child will carry the purple folder with the reading log and any homework inside, his/her agenda, and at least two books (at their reading level) in the jumbo bag. Soon he/she will also have his/her reading response journal and a reading response will be part of their reading at home.  Each child needs to complete at least 3 reading responses each week.That book will probably come home tomorrow. Thank you for helping your child to be responsible about their at home reading and their other homework and be sure that the jumbo bag is in the back pack each day.

Homework:  Read at least 20 minutes and record on reading log. Return any completed forms from big envelope and Texas photo as well as jumbo bag tomorrow.

Math was very exciting today. We worked on a challenging problem and there were tons of unique and effective strategies used by the children!  It was thrilling to have them share about their thinking and especially exciting when their first strategy was incorrect and they had to make adjustments to answer correctly.  Problem:  In a field were some cows and chickens.  There were 11 heads and 30 feet.  How many cows and chickens were there?  Ask your child to share their strategy or one that he/she heard from a friend.  

Tomorrow will be another great day!  We had art today and will have PE tomorrow.

Thanks for sharing your children with me.  I am so thrilled for a fantastic school year!

Sincerely,

 

Pam Bartholomew
4th Grade Teacher

Welcome to Fourth Grade 2012-2013!

Hello!

I am so excited for our new school year and I have been busy unpacking and getting our classroom organized. I am looking forward to meeting all of our new Bartholomew Bats and beginning an exciting year of learning.

Go to this link and fill out the student information form. All of the information will be used only by me for classroom purposes. Thank you!

Student Information Form

Come and see our room and drop off school supplies on Friday, August 25, 2012 at 4:00 pm if your last name begins with the letters A-L or at 4:45 if your last name begins with the letters M-Z. The Kona Ice Truck will also be at school that evening.

Fourth grade is an amazing grade. You will be learning about Texas History, becoming creative problem solvers, improving and refining your writing skills, participating in many science experiments, and becoming avid readers. You will work hard every day, listen carefully, share your thoughts, discover big ideas, and help others daily. Our community of learners will be strong and ready for lots of challenges. I am looking forward to getting started.

Here is your first assignment!!!!!! We will be learning about the regions of Texas. You need to bring a photo of yourself taken somewhere in Texas to school on Friday, August 25. It can be a photo from El Paso, Dallas, Houston, Corpus Christi, San Antonio, or even Round Rock or Austin. A picture from anywhere in Texas (or even from your backyard) will be great. It can be a paper copy and it can include other people as well. On Friday evening, I will give you a note card and you will write a few sentences to tell where you are, what you are doing, and what it was like there. Use details in your writing. We will be using all of our photos and the captions we write for our photos on a bulletin board in the hallway outside our classroom. It will be interesting to see and learn about places in our state.

I know that all of you read a lot this summer so be sure to come to class on Monday, August 27, ready to share some of your favorite books. I can't wait to hear about your favorite titles and your interests.

Feel free to comment to the post and tell your thoughts about fourth grade, your summer, or our new school year. You can also email me with any questions or concerns.

See you on Friday, August, 25!

Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
pam_bartholomew@roundrockisd.org