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 4, 2015

Newsletter 9/27/15

Hello Bat Families,

We had a great week! We had an early release day on Wednesday and the children adjusted well to a very different schedule. We also had the Austin Jazz Workshop perform for us on Friday. It was amazing!

Service Club meets on Monday from 2:45-3:45. Open to all 4th and 5th graders.

Toy Drive-The Service Club is holding a Toy Drive to bring awareness to OMS.
Opsoclonus-myoclonus syndrome (OMS) is a paraneoplastic neurological disorder and one of our kindergarteners has been treated at Dell Children's Hospital for this disorder. Bring in any NEW toys. Suggestion include baby toys, art supplies, Legos, stuffed animals, and I-Tunes Gift Cards. All NEW toys are welcome. Put the toys in the box by the office and give any gift cards to the teacher. The toys will go to children at Dell Children's Hospital.

Round Rock Serving Center- The Service Club volunteered at the Round Rock Serving Center on Saturday, September 26 from 9-10. We stocked bread and pastries in the pantry, bagged some clothes for the thrift store, and arranged books in the waiting area. Our next trip will be on Saturday, October 24 from 9-10. Your child can come to volunteer, even if they are unable to be part of our FCE Service Club.
https://www.rrasc.org/

The Book Fair is in our library this week! Thank you for supporting literacy and our school!

Pen Pals are coming on October 6-Our class and Mrs. Canizales's class are very fortunate to participate in a service learning project with The Court Assisted Living Facility on Sunrise Road in Round Rock. Our students will write letters to a resident and residents will come to our school to meet with the children. The kids will interview them, play games, share projects and stories, and basically enjoy a new friendship. You are welcome to come and participate with us in the library from about 9:30-10:45. The residents love to see the children and the kids learn so much from our older friends. I am so excited for this year's pen pal program to begin.

Reading-
*Continued to work on individual testing,
*Used our Storyworks magazine to listen to a story about bullying read by the author then talked about character changes, and theme using evidence and examples from the story to support our thinking.
*this week we will begin working on strategies for non-fiction text and will talk about characteristics of genres
*read independently daily

Writing-
*finishing up our revising, editing, and publishing of personal narratives
*will take an assessment of our writing-write a personal narrative independently in 45 minutes-(drafting, revising, editing, writing final copy)
*will write letters to our pen pals for our visit next Tuesday, Oct. 6
*begin gathering entries and ideas for expository writing

Social Studies-
*made teams to research one region and make a team poster
*this week, we will use our knowledge and research of our region to make a map of Texas with our table team (each region is represented). We will present our Texas maps with features
*interpret maps in our textbook to add information for our team's Texas Map

Spelling-
*last week-you're, your (plus individual words) New lists will come out on Monday which will include-were, we're and individual words. Test with dictation sentences on Friday.

Vocabulary-
*last week-map skills
*this week-expository reading words
Go to Quizlet to play games and practice. https://quizlet.com/

Go to Learn2earn to log in reading time (use your paper reading log also) and respond to your reading. You can also earn coins to change your owl avatar.
https://www.learn2earn.org/

Dates to remember:

BOOK FAIR-all week

Monday, September 28-Wear Forest Creek Shirts-Service Club- 2:45-3:45 in room 512

Friday, October 2-Homework packet is due, Reading Response Letter is due.
spelling test, vocabulary test-wear college shirts

Monday, October 5-Wear Forest Creek Shirts-Writing Club- 2:45-3:45 in library

Tuesday, October 6-Pen Pal Visit with our class in the library-9:30-10:45

Friday, October 9-Homework packet is due, Reading Response Letter is due.
spelling test, vocabulary test-wear college shirts

Monday, October 12-No school for students



Have a wonderful weekend! See you on Monday. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Thank you for sharing your child with me.

Sincerely,
Pam
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