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!





Sunday, October 19, 2014

Newsletter

Hi,

It was nice to see so many of you at conferences and to get to talk about your child and his/her progress. If you were unable to attend a conference and would still like to schedule one, please email and let us know. Thank you so much!

Dad’s Day
All dads are invited to come to school with their student(s) on October 24 from 7:30 to 9:00am. Go to class with your child and then report to the cafeteria for juice, coffee, and donuts at 8:15. Dads will get a firsthand experience of life in the classroom. Make plans to attend! You may want to consider signing up to be a part of our Watch D.O.G.S. program.

TAG Information Night
Save this date if you’re interested in the gifted and talented program at Forest Creek Elementary! The TAG parent information night for testing is going to take place on November 11, 2014 in the library. The meeting will be held from 6:30 to 7:15pm.

OMS Toy Drive for Dell Children’s Hospital
The FCE Service Club is still accepting donations for NEW toys to bring awareness of OMS. We have 74 toys so far and our goal is 150. We will collect toys until Nov. 14.

FCE Service Club
Our Service Club will meet on Thursday, October 23 from 2:45-3:45. All 4th and 5th graders are welcome to attend. We will count the new toy donations and begin writing notes and drawing pictures for children in an orphanage in Honduras. We will also talk about upcoming service projects. Bring some ideas.

Tutorials
Tutorials will be offered on Monday and Tuesday afternoons from 2:45-3:45. All students in Fry and Bartholomew’s classes are welcome to come to tutorials. Some come and work on homework and others work in small groups on specific assignments. Ms. Fry also does tutorials in the cafeteria on Tuesday mornings from 7:15-7:30.

Grading Period Ends on Friday
All missing or late assignments need to be completed and turned in by Friday. Any papers or tests that had correct and return for 70%, need to be turned in by Friday. Report cards will be sent home on November 6.

Pen Pals
Our pen pals are scheduled to come to FCE on Oct. 28 at 9:15. We missed seeing them this week and look forward to seeing them again. All are welcome to come and meet these wonderful friends.


Reflections Poems and Stories-Forms due ASAP
Your child brought home a poem or story with the theme-The World Would be a Better Place if… Stapled to their writing is a form to fill out to participate in the PTA Reflections Program. Please fill out the form with your child and return as soon as possible. It would be wonderful for everyone to participate in Reflections.

Our Week
In reading-we read non-fiction articles and determined the structure of the text. An article about the reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone National Park was organized in a compare and contrast format and the students compared and contrasted the opinions and actions of the ranchers and the wolf activists. Another article called “Hanging by a Thread” was organized in a problem/solution and was about the introduction of a non-native plant in Hawaii and the effects of that. We learned about making inferences (background knowledge + text clues=inference) by reading a book called Encounter, which is about Christopher Columbus but from a native boy’s point of view. We will continue working with non-fiction text and will begin literature circles or book clubs this week.

In writing-we published our poems and/or stories for Reflections and wrote more expository entries. We also worked on mentor sentences (to practice grammar, spelling, capitalization and punctuation. We took some writing time to work on our expository essays for social studies. We worked on plurals in spelling (adding es) and will continue with irregular plurals this week (foot, feet, etc…)

In social studies, we worked on our expository essays about our regions and began planning our projects with our groups.

Dates to Remember:
Monday, October 20-Reading Log due, Tutorials afterschool 2:45-3:45
Tuesday, October 21-Tutorials afterschool 2:45-3:45
Wednesday, October 22-Reading Response and Summary due
Thursday, October 23-Service Club Meeting-2:45-3:45
Friday, October 24-Dad’s Day from 7:30-9:00-Reflections forms due, Reading Response and Summary due, Grading Period Ends

Red Ribbon Week-October 27-31
Early Release Day-Wednesday, October 29 at 12:45

Have a great rest of the weekend and let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,

Pam Bartholomew
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