Great Week! Early Release on Wed. Sept. 19 at 12:45, Cool Jazz Concert Friday PM

Hi,

We had another busy but wonderful week. It was quite emotional due to our discussions of the events of September 11, 2001 as well as the unity and hope felt after the tragedies. We also finished reading Stone Fox which has an unexpected and sad ending. Because the children were so engaged and in tune with the main character as I read, many of them began crying. We then talked about how well the author wrote so that we all felt as if we were right there in the story experiencing the entire thing firsthand. Ask your child about the book and how we are all striving to encourage an emotional response from the readers of our writing. We also want to get lost in our books when we read independently like we did with Stone Fox.

Here is a look at our week:

Reading-We read many articles from Scholastic about 9/11. We read and discussed a book about a Fireboat that helped control the fires when the water pipes were unable to be accessed and part of a biography of Fire Chief Peter Ganci. We then wrote Thank You cards for police officers and fire fighters. Senior Officer Schmidt, Sergeant Bazzle (Kyra's Dad!) and Detective Tines from the Austin Police Department made an appearance on broadcast on Friday. They came to accept the Thank You cards written by the students at our school. We also read a book about being accepting and not judgmental called Elmer the Dog then used sentences from the book to practice complete and incomplete sentences and capitals and punctuation. Writing about characters and character changes was a focus this week. Next week we will be working in small groups for reading.

Writing-We are collecting entries for our first personal narratives. So far we have written small moment stories about some special people, favorite places, and memorable things. We will continue collecting entries, choose one to publish, then will begin revising and editing.

Math-Mastering place value has been successful for most of us. We are now working on multiplication and division strategies. We will be using arrays, drawings, objects, and computational strategies to help us master the concept of multiplication and division and then will use that knowledge in real-life problem solving.

Science-Famous scientists was our focus for the week. We researched and discussed the contributions of Marie Curie, Sir Isaac Newton, Nicolas Copernicus, and Carl Linneaus. We also talked about the possibilities for science careers.

Social Studies-Next week is Celebrate Freedom Week and Monday is Constitution Day. We will be learning about the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. We will also be going on a virtual bus trip of Texas while we learn about the regions of our state.


Be sure that your child is reading everyday, writing often, and practicing math facts each day. Go to the math links on our class web site as well as links the site of other FCE teachers for some practice ideas.

Have a great weekend! Thank you for sharing your child with me!

Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew