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, November 14, 2015

Newsletter

Hello Bat Families, 11/14/2015

We had a great week and have a busy week ahead. Our Veteran's Day Assembly was wonderful. The singing by the choir and the audience was beautiful, hearing from some Veterans was amazing, and seeing all the children waving their American flags was awesome. Flashlight Reading in the library was so much fun! Thank you for donating for Coins for Coats to help us earn that prize.

Groovy-O-Rama-Dress groovy and join us at 12:00 on Friday for some groovy singing!

OMS Toy Drive! We collected 280 toys! Thank you so much to everyone for helping to increase awareness of OMS and to brighten the day of patients in Dell Children's Hospital.

World Class Leadership Conference-5 students from Service Club joined Ms. Reinlinger, Mrs. Bendetto, and me for a district conference on leadership. It was great to see so many excited and energetic children and adults talk about the importance of leading and being positive, goal setting, helpful, creative leaders now and everyday. We had the opportunity to share information about our Service Club and to learn about iMovie, Birthday Boxes, and lots more.

Writing Club meets on Monday, Nov. 16 after school. We will also have UIL Writing Club try-outs on Monday, November 16. Students in Writing Club are encouraged to try out, but not required.The club is from 2:45-3:45. All 2nd-5th graders are welcome. We will meet in the library and pick-up is in front of the school.

Volunteer at the Round Rock Serving Center on Saturday, Dec. 5. from 9-10. All are welcome to come and volunteer. Email me if you will be coming so that I can let them know. Bring some gently used books to donate to the bookcase in the waiting area.

Reading-We read about Veteran's Day. We also learned about free verse and lyrical poems. Interpretation of poetry can vary based on the reader. We watched two videos of the same poem with very different interpretations. Watch them and see what you think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x587PpF-J1Q and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1I4uaRt6bM We talked about mood in poetry and made inferences while reading the poem DreamsDby Langston Hughes. We will work with poetry a bit more this week as well as read and discuss some Thanksgiving books.

Writing-We are publishing our Expository Writing and will write poems this week. We will write Character Cinquain poems about a main character from our book club books. We will write poems using lots of sensory words, imagery, similes, and metaphors.

Social Studies-We are working on our tribe projects. It is very exciting to see how engaged all of the children are in their work. Our driving question is how can we teach others about the tribes of Texas. Some are making dioramas, others are writing a play, others are creating gameboards, others making posters, and others are writing the lyrics to a song about their tribe. Our plan is to finish the projects by Tuesday, so that we can present our work to our homeroom on Wednesday. We will then get feedback from our classmates and spend Thursday revising and improving our projects. On Friday, we will do our final presentation at 9:30 for our 1st grade reading buddies. You are invited to come and watch our presentations at 9:30 on Friday.

Spelling-We are reviewing plurals this week. Each child will also have individual spelling words.

Vocabulary- This week we are working on science words. Practice on quizlet.

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:

Monday, November 16- Wear FCE t-shirts. Writing Club and UIL try outs 2:45-3:45 in library. 2nd-5th invited.

Tuesday, November 17-library check out

Wednesday, November 18

Thursday, November 19-Thanksgiving Lunch-11:05

Friday, November 20-Homework packet is due, Reading Response Letter is due.
spelling test, vocabulary test-Groovy-O-Rama 4th grade-12:00

November 23-27-Thanksgiving Break

Monday, November 30-Wear FCE shirts. Writing Club 2:45-3:45 in library. 2nd-5th invited.

Tuesday, December 1-Art Field Trip to Blanton Art Museum

Wednesday, December 2-Early Release-PJ Day

Friday, December 4-Homework packet is due, Reading Response Letter is due.
spelling test, vocabulary test-wear college shirts

Saturday, Dec. 5-Volunteer at RR Serving Center from 9-10.

Thursday, Dec. 10-Cultural Night 5-7


I hope you continue to have a wonderful weekend! Let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Thank you for sharing your child with me.

Sincerely,
Pam
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