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!





Friday, January 22, 2016

Newsletter

Hi,

We had a great week!

Monthly Reading Challenge Lunch will be on Wednesday, January 27 during our lunch time. The kids will bring their lunch or get a school lunch and we will provide some treats. Everyone will bring one of the books they read this month to share. To come to the lunch, each child needs to fill out a paper form for the biography that they read and also fill out a form (paper or goggle form) for one other book. I will send out electronic invitations either tonight or tomorrow to those who already completed the forms for biography and one other book. If your child doesn't receive an invitation, he/she has until Tuesday afternoon to get those forms to me. Happy Reading!!!!!

Science projects are due on Monday! Presentations will begin on Monday. Checkpoint #6 and the board or poster are due on Monday. I am excited to see these amazing projects!

Volunteer at the Round Rock Serving Center Tomorrow-We will volunteer at the Serving Center on Saturday, Jan. 23 from 9-10:30. We will take all the donated paperback books and will do whatever they need us to do. All are welcome to join us.

Service Club Meeting on Feb. 1 from 2:45-3:45-The Service Club students will make bowls in Mrs. Arnold's room that will be donated to the Empty Bowl Project. All fourth and fifth graders are invited to come and be part of Service Club and make bowls. At another meeting, we will glaze the bowls.

Talent Show-The FCE Talent Show will be tonight from 6:30-8:30. Come and see all of our amazing students perform as well as a surprise performance by some FCE teachers!

Science Fair and Math/Science Night-Thursday, Jan. 28 will be another awesome night at FCE. Come and play math games and view all the incredible science projects from 5-7.

Pen Pal Visit-Our pen pals will visit on Feb. 2 from 9:30-10:45. Come and meet our pen pals while we celebrate Valentine's Day with them.

Valentine's Day Party-Our party will be on Feb. 12 at 1:00. More information to come.

Remember-READING RESPONSE LETTERS DUE EVERY FRIDAY. Turn any missing letters in ASAP.

Read about our week:

Reading-We began reading traditional literature-fairy tales, trickster tales, and folk tales. The book, Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters, was read together and we discussed the protagonist and antagonist and their character traits. We also did a reader's theater called The Sticky Coyote which is a trickster tale. We will continue with more fairy tales, folk tales and other traditional literature. We will create story mountains to show the progression of the story, continue to discuss character traits, and continue to discuss theme or author's message in what we read. Be sure to talk to your child about these things when you are discussing books with him/her.

Writing- We took a STAAR Ready Writing test on Wednesday and will use data from that assessment to drive our instruction. We also read a wonderful short story by Sandra Ciseneros called Eleven and discussed how she used specific details and slowed down the heart of the story to make the reader feel like they were in the story. We will practice this while writing our own fairy tales this week.

Spelling-This week we will work on words ending in -ian. This week we will add endings to verbs to change the verb tense-(chase=chases, chasing and chased)We will also have individual words.

Vocabulary-We talked about words that deal with traditional literature. These words are tricky and we didn't have enough time with the shorter week and the STAAR Ready testing to go over them enough. We will continue with these words and will have the test on Friday, Jan. 29.Go to quizlet.com to practice and look for the words in the homework packet.

Social Studies-We are almost done with our explorers poster and will begin learning about missions on Tuesday.

Dates to remember:

Friday, Jan. 22-FCE Talent Show-6:30-8:30

Saturday, Jan. 23-Volunteer at the Round Rock Serving Center from 9:00-10:30.

Monday, Jan. 25-Wear FCE shirts-Writing Club from 2:45-3:45.

Tuesday, Jan. 26-Monthly Reading Challenge papers and forms due, Library check out.

Wednesday, Jan. 27-Monthly Reading Challenge lunch in library with a few treats.

Thursday, Jan. 28-Math and Science Night-(Science Fair) 5-7 pm

Friday, Jan. 29-Spelling test, Vocabulary test, Reading Response letters due, Reading Logs due, Wear college shirts

Monday, Feb. 1-Wear FCE shirts. Service Club meeting from 2:45-3:45 with Ms. Arnold making bowls for the Empty Bowl Project

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

Sincerely,
Pam
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