Dates to Remember:
Reading/Math Logs due on Monday.
Homework packet due on Monday.
Spelling/word study test on Friday.
Thursday, October 3-Math test on Multiplication/Division strategies
Thursday, October 3-Writing Club-Mrs. Arnold's room, 2:45-3:45
Donate clothing, jeans, jackets, and books for Round Rock Serving Center. Boxes are outside the office. Thank you for supporting our FCE Service Club, PTA, and our community.
Hi,
We had our first Pen Pal visit today and it was wonderful! Our pen pals were so happy to be with your children and the kids were respectful, kind, and engaged. It was amazing to see them interviewing, chatting, and playing games together. The pen pals stayed about 20 minutes longer than was planned because they were all working so well together. Our next visit is scheduled for October 11 from 9:30-10:30 in the library. We would love to have you come and see our students in action.
Thank you to all the dads who were able to come to our classroom this morning for our Dad's Day. We had fun creating aluminum foil boats and testing them out to see which design could hold the most pennies. Thanks again and feel free to come and spend time in our classroom at other times as well. We would love to have you.
Read about our week!
Reading-We read an article on Food Allergies in Time For Kids and talked about text features and the organization of non-fiction or expository text. We will continue reading non-fiction this week as well as continue reading, discussing, and responding to our book club books.
Writing- We are gathering entries for personal essays. We compared the characteristics of a personal narrative and a personal essay. We talked about big ideas like friends and watched a video of the unique friendship between Bella the dog and Tarra the elephant at a Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. We will be writing about what we notice and observe and then reflect on what the observation or noticing made us realize, wonder, or think. As always we will be writing with in complete sentences with capital letters at the beginning of our sentences and punctuation at the end. Thank you for keeping your child accountable for these conventions.
Math-In math, we explored multiplication and division strategies. We talked about fact families and the how multiplication and division are related. We played games and solved problems. The children made arrays out of graph paper to represent candy boxes. They made all possible arrays for 24 candies and then wrote a letter to explain which box would be best and why. Math vocabulary has also been a hot topic. Dividend, divisor, quotient, factor, and product are all words that we practice each day. We will reviewing on Monday for our test on Thursday.
Science-The study of matter is our focus. We did an investigation using straws and water. The water had food coloring and different amounts of water and made layers according to the density of the water when put in the straw with a pipette or eye dropper. We also experimented with our reading buddies and made layers using oil, water, and corn syrup. We will continue with matter topics next week.
Social Studies-Texas map posters were made in small groups. The kids traced the shape of Texas and divided it into regions. Then added pom-poms, yarn, and jewels to represent products, resources, rivers, and cities. They made a map key or legend and a compass rose as well. We will soon be talking about the Native Americans in early Texas.
Thank you for your continued support. As always, let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Have a wonderful weekend!
Sincerely,
Pam
Friday, September 27, 2013
Saturday, September 21, 2013
Hi,
We enjoyed indoor recess today and some rainy weather. We also had a great week!
FCE Service Club meets on Monday, September 23 from 2:45-3:45. All 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders are welcome.
Reading and math logs are due on Monday. Homework packets are also due.
Monday is our library check-out day.
This week is Education Go Get It Week! Wear a college shirt on Monday! Scroll down to read about the rest of the week.
Be sure to return your registration form with a signature and any necessary corrections.
Early Release on Wednesday, September 25 at 12:45
Bring Dads to School Day is on Friday, September 25 from 7:15-8:15 in the classroom then Dads move to the cafeteria for donuts. Research shows that having an involved Dad is a big indicator of student academic success. We look forward to seeing you!
Pen Pals will be here on Friday!-We wrote letters yesterday for our pen pals and introduced ourselves. On Friday, September 27, our pen pals will be at our school in the library from 10:00-10:45. We will be interviewing them and playing games. You are all invited to come and meet these amazing friends from The Court at Round Rock Assisted Living Facility.
Read about our week:
In reading, we read and responded to our book club books and met as a group to discuss questions, predictions, tricky words, characters, and our thoughts about the chapter and the book as a whole. We also read and responded to some non-fiction articles in our weekly Time for Kids publication. We read about the 50 year anniversary of the March on Washington, a newly discovered mammal, and many other interesting articles. Next week we will continue reading and discussing our book club books. We are examining the basic story elements (setting, characters, problem, solution). We will also be looking at non-fiction text and examining different structures that an author uses in expository text. (compare/contrast, problem/solution, sequential, etc…)
In writing, many of the children published their personal narratives! All of the children are doing a great job drafting, conferencing with me, making revisions, and editing their pieces. We will share our narratives and begin gathering entries for our first published essay of the year. We also worked on the spelling and usage of the homophones there, their, they’re, your, and you’re and using correct capitalization and punctuation in all of our writing.
In math, we took an assessment on place value, ordering, estimation, as well as adding and subtracting with regrouping. Most of the children did very well. We are now working on multiplication and division strategies. We played games to practice these strategies and used a multiplication chart to look for patterns. Thank you for working on automaticity of facts with your child at home. Vocabulary is a big part of math and we worked with the words addend, sum, factors, product, multiple, dividend, divisor, quotient, and minuend, subtrahend, and difference. We will continue to work on these and add more math language throughout the year.
In science, we took an assessment on tools and safety and wrote an essay about why scientists need tools. The multiple choice section and the content of the essay was not a problem for most students but many needed to remember to always use correct capitalization, punctuation, and spelling in anything that they write. Thank you for helping your child be accountable for these conventions of writing. Matter is our next topic and we had fun with some investigations this week. We talked about the three states of matter and how energy is either added or subtracted to a substance to change the state of matter. We put blue food coloring in cups of water then added ice cubes to water and used a white paper towel to wipe off the condensation. There were no blue marks on the paper towel so we knew that the water droplets on the outside of the cup didn’t come from the inside blue water and through the plastic but appeared when the cold temperature of the cup changed the water vapor in the air from a gas to a liquid. We also investigated three balloons with mystery substances inside. We measured the mass of the balloons in grams using a triple beam balance, observed them, touched them, smelled them, and predicted which balloons would sink or float. The density of the mystery substances determined whether they would sink or float. Dishwashing liquid had the greatest density and was denser than the water, so it sunk. Air was least dense and was less dense than the water, so it floated. Baby oil bobbed a little bit under the water so its density was in between that of air and dishwashing soap. We will learn more about density in matter this week.
In Social Studies, we learned about freedom, equality, and democracy because this was Celebrate Freedom Week! We learned about the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. We also learned about Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation. We will learn more about maps this week.
Education Go Get It Week!
Round Rock ISD will celebrate Education Go Get It (EGGI) week from September 23-27 as a way of providing students with information about higher education. At Forest Creek, our goal is for every student to make college their choice. We will be celebrating all week with the following activities:
Monday: College Spirit
Wear your favorite college/university t-shirt or jersey
Tuesday: Be All You Can Be – Say College is for me!
Wear Camouflage
Wednesday: Step up to Education
Wear tennis shoes
Thursday: Hats Off to College
Wear your favorite college hat
Friday: Dress for Success
Wear clothes that represents your future profession of choice
Have a wonderful weekend!
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
We enjoyed indoor recess today and some rainy weather. We also had a great week!
FCE Service Club meets on Monday, September 23 from 2:45-3:45. All 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders are welcome.
Reading and math logs are due on Monday. Homework packets are also due.
Monday is our library check-out day.
This week is Education Go Get It Week! Wear a college shirt on Monday! Scroll down to read about the rest of the week.
Be sure to return your registration form with a signature and any necessary corrections.
Early Release on Wednesday, September 25 at 12:45
Bring Dads to School Day is on Friday, September 25 from 7:15-8:15 in the classroom then Dads move to the cafeteria for donuts. Research shows that having an involved Dad is a big indicator of student academic success. We look forward to seeing you!
Pen Pals will be here on Friday!-We wrote letters yesterday for our pen pals and introduced ourselves. On Friday, September 27, our pen pals will be at our school in the library from 10:00-10:45. We will be interviewing them and playing games. You are all invited to come and meet these amazing friends from The Court at Round Rock Assisted Living Facility.
Read about our week:
In reading, we read and responded to our book club books and met as a group to discuss questions, predictions, tricky words, characters, and our thoughts about the chapter and the book as a whole. We also read and responded to some non-fiction articles in our weekly Time for Kids publication. We read about the 50 year anniversary of the March on Washington, a newly discovered mammal, and many other interesting articles. Next week we will continue reading and discussing our book club books. We are examining the basic story elements (setting, characters, problem, solution). We will also be looking at non-fiction text and examining different structures that an author uses in expository text. (compare/contrast, problem/solution, sequential, etc…)
In writing, many of the children published their personal narratives! All of the children are doing a great job drafting, conferencing with me, making revisions, and editing their pieces. We will share our narratives and begin gathering entries for our first published essay of the year. We also worked on the spelling and usage of the homophones there, their, they’re, your, and you’re and using correct capitalization and punctuation in all of our writing.
In math, we took an assessment on place value, ordering, estimation, as well as adding and subtracting with regrouping. Most of the children did very well. We are now working on multiplication and division strategies. We played games to practice these strategies and used a multiplication chart to look for patterns. Thank you for working on automaticity of facts with your child at home. Vocabulary is a big part of math and we worked with the words addend, sum, factors, product, multiple, dividend, divisor, quotient, and minuend, subtrahend, and difference. We will continue to work on these and add more math language throughout the year.
In science, we took an assessment on tools and safety and wrote an essay about why scientists need tools. The multiple choice section and the content of the essay was not a problem for most students but many needed to remember to always use correct capitalization, punctuation, and spelling in anything that they write. Thank you for helping your child be accountable for these conventions of writing. Matter is our next topic and we had fun with some investigations this week. We talked about the three states of matter and how energy is either added or subtracted to a substance to change the state of matter. We put blue food coloring in cups of water then added ice cubes to water and used a white paper towel to wipe off the condensation. There were no blue marks on the paper towel so we knew that the water droplets on the outside of the cup didn’t come from the inside blue water and through the plastic but appeared when the cold temperature of the cup changed the water vapor in the air from a gas to a liquid. We also investigated three balloons with mystery substances inside. We measured the mass of the balloons in grams using a triple beam balance, observed them, touched them, smelled them, and predicted which balloons would sink or float. The density of the mystery substances determined whether they would sink or float. Dishwashing liquid had the greatest density and was denser than the water, so it sunk. Air was least dense and was less dense than the water, so it floated. Baby oil bobbed a little bit under the water so its density was in between that of air and dishwashing soap. We will learn more about density in matter this week.
In Social Studies, we learned about freedom, equality, and democracy because this was Celebrate Freedom Week! We learned about the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. We also learned about Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation. We will learn more about maps this week.
Education Go Get It Week!
Round Rock ISD will celebrate Education Go Get It (EGGI) week from September 23-27 as a way of providing students with information about higher education. At Forest Creek, our goal is for every student to make college their choice. We will be celebrating all week with the following activities:
Monday: College Spirit
Wear your favorite college/university t-shirt or jersey
Tuesday: Be All You Can Be – Say College is for me!
Wear Camouflage
Wednesday: Step up to Education
Wear tennis shoes
Thursday: Hats Off to College
Wear your favorite college hat
Friday: Dress for Success
Wear clothes that represents your future profession of choice
Have a wonderful weekend!
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Friday, September 13, 2013
Fun Week!
Hi,
We had a great week. The kids worked hard and most of them are putting forth a good amount of effort. Good for them and let’s keep it up! We enjoyed having the Austin Jazz Group here for an assembly this afternoon! Ask your child about his/her favorite part/song/instrument and why they liked that part.
We will have a math test on Monday on place value (up to hundred millions, expanded form, standard form, word form, ordering large numbers, estimation, rounding) as well as addition and subtraction with regrouping. We did a review today in class and your child should have it in the back pack to bring home to study. Subtraction with regrouping is especially hard for many students. They all need to add to check their work every time they subtract large numbers. (points will be deducted on the test) Here is a website that could help with the understanding that the strategy isn’t to randomly cross out digits and replace with a 10 or a 9 but to regroup the number. 1 thousand =10 hundreds, 1 hundred =10 tens, 1 ten =10 ones. When you regroup, you aren’t changing the number, you are rearranging the number in each place. Go to this website: http://enlvm.usu.edu/ma/nav/activity.jsp?sid=nlvm&cid=1_1&lid=155
At this site, your child can practice with virtual base ten blocks.
We will also have a science quiz on safety and tools. Your child will bring home pictures of tools and their uses today as well.
Service Club will begin on Monday, September 23 in our classroom from 2:45-3:45. We will meet every other Monday. Service Club facilitates activities for the school such as writing letters to soldiers, collecting food for families from our school, collecting books for the Round Rock Serving Center, and many other service opportunities. We also go to the Round Rock Serving Center on the first Saturday of each month from 9-10 to volunteer. Come and help us help others! Pick up in front of the school at 3:45. All fourth and fifth graders are welcome!
Writing Club will begin on Thursday, October 3 in Mrs. Arnold’s room from 2:45-3:45. We will meet every other Thursday. In writing club, the second, third, fourth, and fifth graders write and share their work. We have a short mini-lesson or talk about a strategy to try to improve writing, then the kids write! Teachers are there to conference about their writing and we encourage the kids to talk to each other about their work. Then we have a sharing time at the end of the session.
Research Club is led by Mrs. Washburn and is starting on Tuesdays. Applications are outside the computer lab. This group will work on independent research ideas. Email her for more information. Julie_Washburn@roundrockisd.org
Math Pentathlon will begin on Thursday, September 19. Everyone is encouraged to come and have fun with math puzzles and games. Applications are outside the computer lab. Email Julie_Washburn@roundrockisd.org for more info.
Robotics will be starting soon. More information will be coming.
Read about our week!
Reading-In reading this week, we began some book club book groups. Your child is reading Mudshark, Chocolate Fever, or The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. They are reading independently and then answering questions about the chapter. Then we meet as a group to discuss it and talk about it in greater depth. We also read some articles and a book called 14 Cows for America about September 11. I am in the process of individually testing each child to determine their independent and instructional reading levels. We also read and compared a fire poem and an article about wildfires. Next week we will continue with book club books and read some articles from Time for Kids.
Writing-We are drafting personal narratives and will be revising and editing next week for publication by Friday. We read several books to use as mentor texts to model quality writing and talk about the techniques that the author uses. Zooming in on details, strong word choice, telling the story with details, not giving a summary of what happened, expressing thoughts and feelings, describing the setting, and slowing down the most important parts are some of the strategies on which we are working.
Math-Place value games and activities have been fun this week. We discussed opposing viewpoints of Charlie Brown and Lucy and use estimating and mathematics to decide who was correct. We ordered numbers on a large number line on the chalkboard and practiced rounding on the number line also. We even chose a dream vacation and had to use estimation to see how much it would cost. We will have an assessment on Monday and then will begin practicing multiplication and division concepts.
Social Studies-We completed our bus trip through the regions of Texas and are completing activities to go with each region.
Science-We examined shells using tools in the science lab and watched some demonstrations (using the tools) using vinegar, salt, and pennies. We discussed the scientific process as we determined which container cleaned the pennies best. We also watched what happened when mixing baking soda, soap, and vinegar and wrote about our observations. On Monday, we will do explore whether the mass of a matchbox car has an impact on the distance it will travel using a ramp. Then we will take the quick quiz on safety and tools. Next we will learn about matter.
Let me know if you have any concerns or questions. Have a wonderful weekend!
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
We had a great week. The kids worked hard and most of them are putting forth a good amount of effort. Good for them and let’s keep it up! We enjoyed having the Austin Jazz Group here for an assembly this afternoon! Ask your child about his/her favorite part/song/instrument and why they liked that part.
We will have a math test on Monday on place value (up to hundred millions, expanded form, standard form, word form, ordering large numbers, estimation, rounding) as well as addition and subtraction with regrouping. We did a review today in class and your child should have it in the back pack to bring home to study. Subtraction with regrouping is especially hard for many students. They all need to add to check their work every time they subtract large numbers. (points will be deducted on the test) Here is a website that could help with the understanding that the strategy isn’t to randomly cross out digits and replace with a 10 or a 9 but to regroup the number. 1 thousand =10 hundreds, 1 hundred =10 tens, 1 ten =10 ones. When you regroup, you aren’t changing the number, you are rearranging the number in each place. Go to this website: http://enlvm.usu.edu/ma/nav/activity.jsp?sid=nlvm&cid=1_1&lid=155
At this site, your child can practice with virtual base ten blocks.
We will also have a science quiz on safety and tools. Your child will bring home pictures of tools and their uses today as well.
Service Club will begin on Monday, September 23 in our classroom from 2:45-3:45. We will meet every other Monday. Service Club facilitates activities for the school such as writing letters to soldiers, collecting food for families from our school, collecting books for the Round Rock Serving Center, and many other service opportunities. We also go to the Round Rock Serving Center on the first Saturday of each month from 9-10 to volunteer. Come and help us help others! Pick up in front of the school at 3:45. All fourth and fifth graders are welcome!
Writing Club will begin on Thursday, October 3 in Mrs. Arnold’s room from 2:45-3:45. We will meet every other Thursday. In writing club, the second, third, fourth, and fifth graders write and share their work. We have a short mini-lesson or talk about a strategy to try to improve writing, then the kids write! Teachers are there to conference about their writing and we encourage the kids to talk to each other about their work. Then we have a sharing time at the end of the session.
Research Club is led by Mrs. Washburn and is starting on Tuesdays. Applications are outside the computer lab. This group will work on independent research ideas. Email her for more information. Julie_Washburn@roundrockisd.org
Math Pentathlon will begin on Thursday, September 19. Everyone is encouraged to come and have fun with math puzzles and games. Applications are outside the computer lab. Email Julie_Washburn@roundrockisd.org for more info.
Robotics will be starting soon. More information will be coming.
Read about our week!
Reading-In reading this week, we began some book club book groups. Your child is reading Mudshark, Chocolate Fever, or The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. They are reading independently and then answering questions about the chapter. Then we meet as a group to discuss it and talk about it in greater depth. We also read some articles and a book called 14 Cows for America about September 11. I am in the process of individually testing each child to determine their independent and instructional reading levels. We also read and compared a fire poem and an article about wildfires. Next week we will continue with book club books and read some articles from Time for Kids.
Writing-We are drafting personal narratives and will be revising and editing next week for publication by Friday. We read several books to use as mentor texts to model quality writing and talk about the techniques that the author uses. Zooming in on details, strong word choice, telling the story with details, not giving a summary of what happened, expressing thoughts and feelings, describing the setting, and slowing down the most important parts are some of the strategies on which we are working.
Math-Place value games and activities have been fun this week. We discussed opposing viewpoints of Charlie Brown and Lucy and use estimating and mathematics to decide who was correct. We ordered numbers on a large number line on the chalkboard and practiced rounding on the number line also. We even chose a dream vacation and had to use estimation to see how much it would cost. We will have an assessment on Monday and then will begin practicing multiplication and division concepts.
Social Studies-We completed our bus trip through the regions of Texas and are completing activities to go with each region.
Science-We examined shells using tools in the science lab and watched some demonstrations (using the tools) using vinegar, salt, and pennies. We discussed the scientific process as we determined which container cleaned the pennies best. We also watched what happened when mixing baking soda, soap, and vinegar and wrote about our observations. On Monday, we will do explore whether the mass of a matchbox car has an impact on the distance it will travel using a ramp. Then we will take the quick quiz on safety and tools. Next we will learn about matter.
Let me know if you have any concerns or questions. Have a wonderful weekend!
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Friday, September 6, 2013
Busy and Fun Week!
Reminders:
Reading/Math Logs due on Monday.
Decorated Writer's Notebooks due on Monday.
Wednesday, September 11: 5:45-pizza, 6:00-PTA Meeting, 6:30- Watch DOGS Kick-off, 6:45-Volunteer Orientation
Thursday, September 12: Girl and Boy Scout Informational Meeting
Friday, September 13: Math Assessment on Place Value and Numeration
Wednesday, September 25: Early Release Day 12:45pm
Friday, September 27: Dads in Class at 7:30, Dads in cafeteria for coffee and donuts at 8:15
We had a busy and fun week!
In reading, the children read poetry books and wrote a letter to me about one of the poems in their book and explained the aspects of the poem that they liked best. The children also read different editions of National Geographic Explorer magazines. They each wrote a letter to me telling me the text features that were helpful to him/her and what he/she learned in their article. We read aloud a book called, How Many Days to America? by Eve Bunting. As I read, the kids wrote their questions, connections, predictions, and thoughts on post-it notes. We call this strategy, "Keeping tracks of our Thinking." This helps them to notice what they are thinking as they read, focus their attention, and monitor their comprehension. We will begin book club groups next week and will practice this strategy in our novels.
In writing, we published our important poems! The students conferenced with me and added metaphors, similes, and sensory words as they revised and edited. They did a great job and the poems are in our hallway for all to see! Next week, we will work on personal narratives. We will write focused seed stories and not giant watermelon stories. (something that happened on the trip to Disney World rather than the entire trip to Disney World). As always, we will work on using capital letters and punctuation appropriately. We will begin using individual spelling lists soon. More information to come.
In math, we are continuing to learn about place value, numeration, and problem solving. We ordered larger numbers using a number line, explored using strips of numbers in expanded form, and played games arranging digits to create numbers in order from least to greatest. Addition with regrouping and subtraction with regrouping especially regrouping with zeros was another focus of the week. We had fun solving logic problems using clues and will focus on estimation and rounding. An assessment of place value and numeration will be given on Friday.
In science, we continued to work on our fantasy stories from the point of view of science safety equipment.
In social studies, we began our virtual bus trip around the regions of Texas. We explored the Mountains and Basins Region and the Coastal Plains Region. We will continue our trip this week.
We met with our first grade reading buddies on Friday afternoon and had fun sharing and reading with them. Our class does some reverse inclusion with our younger functional academic classroom during their adapted PE time. Eleven of our students will assist the teacher in the gym for about 20 minutes on Fridays. The same group will work with the younger children for the first quarter than we will change our group each quarter for the rest of the year. While that group is out of the room, the rest of us are working on math extension and/or remediation activities. Helping with these groups of younger children is a great way for our children to learn acceptance and gives them the opportunity to be role models. I am grateful for these character building and fun activities!
Have a wonderful weekend and let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Reading/Math Logs due on Monday.
Decorated Writer's Notebooks due on Monday.
Wednesday, September 11: 5:45-pizza, 6:00-PTA Meeting, 6:30- Watch DOGS Kick-off, 6:45-Volunteer Orientation
Thursday, September 12: Girl and Boy Scout Informational Meeting
Friday, September 13: Math Assessment on Place Value and Numeration
Wednesday, September 25: Early Release Day 12:45pm
Friday, September 27: Dads in Class at 7:30, Dads in cafeteria for coffee and donuts at 8:15
We had a busy and fun week!
In reading, the children read poetry books and wrote a letter to me about one of the poems in their book and explained the aspects of the poem that they liked best. The children also read different editions of National Geographic Explorer magazines. They each wrote a letter to me telling me the text features that were helpful to him/her and what he/she learned in their article. We read aloud a book called, How Many Days to America? by Eve Bunting. As I read, the kids wrote their questions, connections, predictions, and thoughts on post-it notes. We call this strategy, "Keeping tracks of our Thinking." This helps them to notice what they are thinking as they read, focus their attention, and monitor their comprehension. We will begin book club groups next week and will practice this strategy in our novels.
In writing, we published our important poems! The students conferenced with me and added metaphors, similes, and sensory words as they revised and edited. They did a great job and the poems are in our hallway for all to see! Next week, we will work on personal narratives. We will write focused seed stories and not giant watermelon stories. (something that happened on the trip to Disney World rather than the entire trip to Disney World). As always, we will work on using capital letters and punctuation appropriately. We will begin using individual spelling lists soon. More information to come.
In math, we are continuing to learn about place value, numeration, and problem solving. We ordered larger numbers using a number line, explored using strips of numbers in expanded form, and played games arranging digits to create numbers in order from least to greatest. Addition with regrouping and subtraction with regrouping especially regrouping with zeros was another focus of the week. We had fun solving logic problems using clues and will focus on estimation and rounding. An assessment of place value and numeration will be given on Friday.
In science, we continued to work on our fantasy stories from the point of view of science safety equipment.
In social studies, we began our virtual bus trip around the regions of Texas. We explored the Mountains and Basins Region and the Coastal Plains Region. We will continue our trip this week.
We met with our first grade reading buddies on Friday afternoon and had fun sharing and reading with them. Our class does some reverse inclusion with our younger functional academic classroom during their adapted PE time. Eleven of our students will assist the teacher in the gym for about 20 minutes on Fridays. The same group will work with the younger children for the first quarter than we will change our group each quarter for the rest of the year. While that group is out of the room, the rest of us are working on math extension and/or remediation activities. Helping with these groups of younger children is a great way for our children to learn acceptance and gives them the opportunity to be role models. I am grateful for these character building and fun activities!
Have a wonderful weekend and let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Monday, September 2, 2013
First Week of School was filled with Learning Opportunities!
Reminders:
No School on Monday for Labor Day.
Reading/Math Logs due on Tuesday.
Back to School Night on Thursday, September 5 at 6:00 in the cafeteria.
Grandparent's Day on Friday, September 6. Our lunch time is 11:55-12:25.
Our first week of school was full of learning about each other and our classroom. We learned about our expectations for reading and writing workshop, ways we share strategies in math, and how we treat others in our classroom, our school, and everywhere! We respect each other, learn from each other, and share our ideas and thoughts. We are going to have a great year!
In reading, we read and discussed many books that had strong characters and interesting interactions among characters. We enjoyed books like, Bully, Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon, Wolf!, and Amazing Grace. We discussed internal and external characteristics and the theme or author's message and genres using these books. The children independently read a traditional pourquoi story called The Cat's Purr. Pourquoi means "why" in French and pourquoi stories were created by various cultures to explain things in nature or why things were the way they were. This story told about why cats purr. The children read the story then wrote me a letter telling a short summary of the book, how the characters changed in the story their favorite parts, why they liked that part, and their thoughts about the book's title. The children also read independently daily and I conferenced with them about their book choices and had a conversation about their reading. We began reading the novel Wonder together. This is an amazing book about the life of a 10 year old boy with facial abnormalities. It leads itself to many discussions about literary content as well as life lessons. Next week, we will continue reading different genres, use strategies to monitor our comprehension, and write responses about our reading.
In writing, we discussed a quote about not giving up and discussed the definition of the word, persevere. Then the children wrote a personal narrative about a time that they showed perseverance. We also created individual Enthusiasm Webs and Frustration Webs. We brainstormed things that make us really happy and excited as well as things that make us frustrated. We will use these webs to help us with ideas for future writing. The book, Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, helped us think of memories in new ways and record those for future writing as well. Our first published piece of writing will be our important poems. We are drafting poems using similes, metaphors, and sensory descriptions to explain something that is important to each of us. Next week, we will conference individually, revise, edit, publish, and illustrate these poems. Then we will continue gathering entries for personal narratives.
In math, we are learning about place value and problem solving. We played many games such as greatest number wins and guess my number. We found large numbers in everyday life, wrote numbers in standard form, word form, and expanded form, and used base ten blocks to visually represent numbers. Using hundred boards, fifty boards, and eighty boards, we found patterns and used addition and subtraction to figure out unknown numbers. Playing with numbers in this way helps us to better grasp the base ten system and understand place value. Problem solving strategies were shared throughout the week using our document camera. We talked about effective and efficient strategies and learning from mistakes. We will continue to work on place value and problem solving next week.
In science, we talked about science safety and began writing an imaginative story from the point of view of a safety tool. (goggles, apron, gloves, eye/face wash, fire blanket, or fire extinguisher). We will continue these stories next week and explore science tools.
In social studies, we began learning about the regions of Texas by sharing photos of ourselves all around the state. We will examine characteristics of each region and its resources by going on a virtual bus tour of the state. We will also practice reading maps and features of maps. Learning and drawing conclusions by examining primary source documents is an aspect that we will be implementing in social studies this year. We began by examining documents (photos, map, girl scout sash, etc...) from my life to learn about me. The children will use primary source items (or photos or drawings of them) to decorate their writer's notebooks. We will examine each of these to learn more about each other as well as learning about primary sources.
I look forward to seeing our parents on Thursday for our Back to School Night and meeting grandparents on Friday for Grandparent's Day.
Thank you for a great week. Contact me with any questions or concerns.
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