Bartholomew Bats!


Our school is located in Round Rock, Texas which is near Austin. Austin and Round Rock both have huge populations of Mexican Free Tailed Bats that live under our bridges. A colony of bats lives beneath the Ann Richards/Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin and in Round Rock, another colony resides under the Interstate 35 bridge over McNeil Road. Each evening from March to about October, the bats fly out from beneath the bridge and search for insects to eat. The emergence of the bats is a wonder to watch. We are also thankful that all these millions of bats eat the bugs by our homes.

Our class mascot is the Bat to honor the mammals that live so close to us and help us. (also because Bat and Bartholomew both start with the letter B!) The bats in Central Texas live together in a group and help take care of the young. Then they migrate together as a team. Our class will also live together in our classroom, work together as a team, and help each other out. We are the Bartholomew Bats!





Friday, January 17, 2014

Great Visit with Pen Pals and Awesome Week!

HI,

We had a busy and wonderful week! Our pen pals came on Tuesday and we performed some reader's theaters for them as well as interviewing and playing games. We also made geometric solids using straws and twist ties, and created geometric patterns with tangrams and pattern blocks. It was a fantastic visit!

Read about our week:

Reading-We began new book club books with a civil rights theme. We also are continuing to read traditional tales-fairy tales, myths, legends, tall tales, etc...

Writing-We finished up our expository essays on our future careers and are collecting entries for personal narratives. We are using strategies to come up with ideas by thinking about strong emotions such as worried, embarrassed, hopeful, hopeless, angry, excited, etc...We list times when we experienced those emotions and then choose one for a rough draft. We also think about turning points in our lives as possible drafts. (first times/last times that we've done something or seen someone or something) We will soon choose an entry to begin revising and editing for publication.

Math-Geometry has been our focus. We learned a lot of vocabulary that has to do with 2D shapes, parallel and perpendicular lines, right, obtuse, and acute angles, and transformations such as reflections, rotations, and translations. We will continue next week with 3D shapes and area and perimeter.

Science-The silt in our experiment retained the most water. This earth material also allowed the radish seeds to sprout the most. We completed our properties of soil test on Thursday and wrote an expository essay explaining which properties we thought would be best for growth in a garden. We will continue with weathering and erosion next week.

Social Studies-We learned some more about the explorers and will begin talking about missions in Texas next week.

Dates to remember:

Friday, Jan. 17-Talent Show 6:30pm
Sat. Jan.18-Volunteer at the Round Rock Serving Center 10-11 am
Mon. Jan. 20-No School, MLK Jr. Day (Great weekend to volunteer!)
Tues. Jan. 21-Homework packets and reading/math logs due
Wed. Jan. 22-Science Projects and Checkpoint #5 due-Presentations will begin
Thurs. Jan. 23-Writing Club 2:45-3:45 pm, Book Order due
Fri. Jan. 24-Word Study test, Geometry test
Mon. Jan. 27-Homework packets and reading/math logs due, Service Club meeting 2:45-3:45, Reading CBA
Wed. Jan. 29-Spring Pictures Day, Writing CBA
Thurs. Jan. 30-Math and Science Night, Science Fair
Fri. Jan. 31-Word Study test

Have a great weekend!
Sincerely,
Pam
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)