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, November 16, 2014

Newsletter

Hi, November 15, 2014

Reflections Gallery Night
Congratulations to all the students who entered the Reflections Program! We had lots of creative responses to the theme: The World would be a Better Place if… We also had many students from our class receive medals and their work will move onto the next level. Congratulations to Madi for her photography work and Erin, Joshua, and Parker for their poetry. Great job!

Food Drive for the Round Rock Serving Center
We are collecting food to fill the pantry at the Serving Center. Canned food and non-perishable items can be placed in the barrels by the office. Donate food by Thursday, Nov. 20. Thank you for your help.

OMS Toy Drive
We passed our goal of 150 toys! As of Friday, our school donated 175 new toys to bring awareness to OMS or Opsocionus Myoclonus Syndrome. The toys will be delivered to patients at Dell Children’s Hospital over Thanksgiving break. Thank you so much for your donations!

Thanksgiving Day Meal
On Thursday, Nov. 20, FCE will celebrate Thanksgiving during lunch. Families are invited to join your child for lunch. Our lunchtime is at 11:00-11:30. If you are planning on coming for lunch, go to https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1QajBlS4z4RcltejLzkAoT7RkHuRWCBwVHUILGR540s8/viewform to RSVP. The office will have a badge printed for you.

Totally O-Rama
We will be celebrating the 1980’s on Friday! Your child is encouraged to dress in 80’s style and be ready to sing and dance. Our performance for 4th grade will be at 12:00 in the cafeteria. It will be totally awesome!!!!!

Thanksgiving Break
RRISD will be closed from Monday, Nov. 24-28 for Thanksgiving Break. Enjoy time with family and friends.

Thanksgiving Break Reading Challenge
Your child will have a reading log to complete over the November Break. At least 20 minutes should be read each day or at least 100 minutes. I encourage your children to challenge themselves and read as much as possible. Everyone is expected to read at least 100 minutes and a homework grade will be earned. All children who read at least 100 minutes will get to choose a prize. The children with the highest totals of reading time will have first choice of the prizes! Don’t forget that reading using I-Station counts as reading time. Read as a family and enjoy time with books together!

Reading
This week we read and discussed poetry. We learned about different types of poems and practiced finding the theme or message in the poem as well as elements of poetry such as stanzas, line breaks, metaphors, similes, adjectives, sensory words, etc… We will continue to examine and make inferences about poetry and will start comparing and contrasting nonfiction and fiction books with the same topic.

Writing
We enjoyed learning about poetry in reading then using that knowledge and our creativity to write poems. We each wrote and published a poem about weather as well as other poems of our choice. The poems will be displayed in the hallway. We will work on improving our writing of personal narratives next and will publish another personal narrative the week after the November break.

Spelling and Vocabulary-This week we will be spelling words with silent b and silent w. (example-thumb and wrist). In vocabulary, we will learn about types of questions and words with the roots-auto and port)

Social Studies
We researched the Caddo and Karankawa tribes. We also reviewed characteristics of all the Texas Regions. We talked about the resources that these tribes used in the Coastal Plains Region where they lived. We will continue studying tribes of Texas this week. We will also revise and edit our Texas Regions projects and will present them to the other homeroom on Friday morning.

Dates to Remember

Monday, November 17-Reading Logs due, Tutorials from 2:45-3:45
Tuesday, November 18-Tutorials from 2:45-3:45, Bring in food for the food drive.
Wednesday, November 19-Summary and Responses due
Thursday, November 20-Thanksgiving Lunch at 11:00, Service Club from 2:45-3:45
Friday, November 21-Summary and Responses due, Spelling test and vocabulary test, Totally O-Rama at 12:00

Monday, November 24-Friday, November 28-No School-Happy Thanksgiving!-Be sure to read at least 100 minutes!
Monday, December 1-Reading Logs due-How many minutes did you read? AT least 100 minutes for a prize!

Have a wonderful weekend! Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
Pam
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