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!





Saturday, March 22, 2014

Writing Camp was Wonderful! Author Celebration on Friday, March 28 at 2:00 in our classroom!

Hi,

Writing Camp was so much fun! The children completed a final copy of a personal narrative about a time when someone told them that they did a good job. They have rough drafts completed of expository writing explaining their favorite time of year and why it is their favorite. We sang camp songs, sat around our campfire, watched some videos about writing skills, played some games about writing, practiced some revising and editing, talked with each other and me about our writing, and wrote while in sleeping bags on the floor. We would love to have you come to our classroom for our Author's Celebration on Friday, March 28 at 2:00 pm. Hope to see you there!

Our science assessment on Weather is now going to be on Wednesday, March 26. Study guide is attached.

Pen Pals will come on Tuesday, March 25 from 10:00-11:30. We will play PE games with Coach Walker in the gym then will go to the library to perform our Voices of Texas Reader's Theater and play some games. Children are invited to bring in props or a costume for the reader's theater. It will be very fun and you are invited to come meet our pen pals and play with us!

Carnival is on Friday, March 28! Thank you for donating for our class raffle basket! Thank you also for volunteering to help at the carnival.

Service Club is working with Cedar Ridge High School's Interact Club to collect new and gently used books for the children at River Oaks Elementary School. Please drop off books in the box by the office. Our goal is to collect 100 books and we have 56 so far. Thanks for helping us spread the joy of reading!

This week in reading, we will explore books and articles that deal with World War II. We will practice inferencing, summarizing, using context clues, determining author's purpose, and determining text structure as we learn about events and people from World War II.

In writing, we will evaluate and continue to revise and edit our writing from writing camp. We will also work on writing another expository piece to refine those skills and practice doing revising and editing skills independently. Games and activities to help us practice the test format for revising and editing will also be a focus this week. We hope to see you on Friday at 2:00 pm for our Author's Celebration! It will be awesome and the children are excited to share their writing with you.

Here are some fun websites that your child can use to help with some writing/grammar skills. As always, Think Through Math, First in Math, and I-Station (reading and writing) also have great practice games.

http://www.learninggamesforkids.com/vocabulary-games/homophones-games/homophones-game.html

http://www.learninggamesforkids.com/vocabulary-games/homophones-games/homophone-definitions.html

http://www.learninggamesforkids.com/vocabulary-games/homophones-games/homophones-word-o-rama.html


http://www.learninggamesforkids.com/vocabulary-games/homophones-games/pick-the-homophones.html

http://www.learninggamesforkids.com/vocabulary-games/homophones-games/homophones.html

Pick the correct sentence! Super fun!!!!!!
http://www.savethecomma.com/game/

Have fun practicing grammar and escaping a haunted castle!!!!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/english/spelling_grammar/language_structure/play.shtml

Commas are cool!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/game/en29punc-game-going-to-work-with-commas

Write contractions and beat the clock!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/game/en29punc-game-beat-the-clock-apostrophes

Practice with possessives!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/game/en29punc-game-who-owns-what

Blow away the correct punctuation and capitals!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/game/en29punc-game-blown-away

Shoot at the correct ending punctuation!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/game/en29punc-game-sentence-shooter

Is this a complete sentence? Play and practice!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/game/en30stru-game-spot-the-sentence

These are also on our Bartholomew Bat Cave Blog from our class website. Have fun!
In math, we will be reviewing all of the concepts that we learned this year. We will play games and have activities that help us practice and expand our skills. We will be working hard and doing many multiple step problem solving as well as reviewing vocabulary. Using data from our CBA and other assessments, your child will practice and review ready for the next few weeks based on their individual needs. Your children will be working hard!!!!!

In Social Studies, we will continue to read and learn about the Texas Revolution. We will practice our Voices of Texas Reader's Theater on Monday and perform it on Tuesday for our Pen Pals after our PE games.

In Science, we will continue to learn about the weather and have our assessment on Wednesday. Then we will begin learning about the water cycle.

Thank you for your continued support! Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
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