Hi,

We had a wonderful week. Red Ribbon Week was great and we learned a lot about making good choices and staying healthy. We had our photos taken on Tuesday and met the firefighters for an assembly on Friday. We finally said goodbye to our tarantula and hello to a snake. We have a beautiful ball python in our room for two weeks. Her name is Sage. (now we have two Sages) and she seems to be starting to shed. She has been fairly active so far and we will be doing some snake research on Monday. Ask your child about Sage our snake!

Electronics Day will be on Wednesday. The class has earned enough Howler tickets to purchase an Electronics Party. (250 Howlers!) Electronic devices ( MP3 player, DS, Playstation, etc..) are allowed for 30 minutes at the end of the day. All electronics will be kept in backpacks for the rest of the day. I told the kids to really think carefully before deciding to bring in something special that has the potential to be lost or broken. Anyone who doesn't bring in an electronic device can play games (from our school's websites) on the Netbooks. Earbuds must be brought to school if listening to music and only the child with the music will be allowed to listen. All games played have to be rated E for everyone if they are played in the classroom. Any chatting electronically needs to be appropriate and respectful. Electronics Party can be very fun but we need to follow some rules. Let me know if you have any questions.

Purchase one of our Class Books! Orders due by next Friday. We are writing a class poetry book. We brainstormed ideas about fall with our pen pals and began writing poetry with them. Then we wrote more poems individually and we will each create a page in our class book. We will be sending the book off to the publisher on Friday, Nov. 2. You will find an order form in your child's Thursday folder. Please fill out with a yes (with payment) or a no, sign, and return. We will be making individual books in the spring and you will receive a free book in the spring if you return the fall class book form with a yes or no. The poetry book is turning out well and we will be including photos of us with our pen pals in the books also. I am excited about our class book! Thank you for returning your forms.

Read about our week.

Reading-We read non-fiction or expository text this week from our Health textbook to gain information about the effects of drugs, smoking, and alcohol on our bodies. We especially looked at the charts and graphs and interpreting the data in them. We used National Geographic Explorer and focused on text features (photos, diagrams, captions, subtitles, charts, maps, drawings, glossary, table of contents, etc..) and discussed how these text features help us to understand the information in the text. We also read some articles independently and wrote F/Q/R charts (facts, questions, response) Finishing our book club books was also exciting this week. We wrote responses and discussed our books in groups. We also went to our class moodle and discussed our book using a chat with the others in our group. Very exciting!

Writing-Our first benchmark or CBA (Curriculum Based Assessment) was completed on Monday. The children practiced reading a prompt, brainstorming, planning, drafting, revising, editing, and writing a final copy all independently. They wrote personal narratives in the 2 hour time limit. They will be taking the STARR writing test in the spring. The next day we reviewed the format of an essay and the format of a personal narrative. We read a poem called Jellybeans up your Nose which talks about being true to yourself and not doing something bad just because someone cool does it. We compared this to the messages in Red Ribbon Week and wrote about our thoughts, feelings, connections, etc... then wrote "this makes me think that......" or "this makes me realize....." or "I used to think ___________ but now I think ________________". These types of statements help to bring the children to a deeper level of thinking about their concepts which could turn into central ideas for essays. We noticed things in the room and then challenged our thinking with one of the statements, and we watched a video about a dog and an elephant and wrote about it pushing our thinking to find a bigger idea. We continued gathering essay entries and we will be choosing one idea to use in our next essay piece which we will be starting next week.

Math-Learning about patterns, balanced equations, and algebraic equations has been fun and we will continue with these concepts in our problem solving all year. We also a practicing using more math vocabulary and will have an assessment on our vocabulary words on Wednesday, October 31. We also examined graphs and practiced interpreting them and writing our own questions about the graphs. The cold front helped us as we practiced working with temperature. It gave us some extreme temperatures to compare. Elapsed time is another concept that we worked with a little this week and will continue with throughout the year.

Science-We began examining forms of energy-electrical, light, sound, mechanical, and thermal or heat energy. We will continue learning about energy.

Social Studies-Early Texans have been interesting to study. We read an article and completed a venn diagram to compare Early Texans and Texans of Today. Riya made a beautiful model of a Caddo village for extra credit! Thank you for extending extra effort! Next we will be learning about explorers.

Dates to Remember:
Wednesday, October 31-Math Vocabulary test
Thursday, November 1-Writing Club begins in library 2:45-3:45 (pick up in front of school)
Friday, November 2-Class book order forms due. (yes or no)
Saturday, November 3-Service Club trip to Round Rock Serving Center-9-10am
Friday, November 9-Groovy-O-Rama 10:00am fourth grade
Tuesday, November 13-TAG Informational Meeting at 5:15 pm, PTA meeting at 6:30 pm, Reflections Gallery Night at &:00 pm

Have a wonderful week! Be sure to read, write, and practice math!

Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew