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 30, 2016

Newsletter

Hi,

Tomorrow is a big day for our class.   We will be wearing pajamas because our class donated the most money for the PTA Donation Drive.  Thank you so much to all those who donated.  We also will have a spooky flashlight reading time in the library because we donated the most money from 4th grade to the Coins for Coats drive.  Wow! We are a generous bunch!  We will have our special lunch for the monthly challenge in our 40 Book Challenge tomorrow.  The students who read a book in a series and wrote a notecard for that book will eat lunch in our classroom with a special treat.   It is going to be a great day!

OMS Toy Drive-Thank you to all those who donated new toys for our OMS Toy Drive. The toys will go to children at Dell Children's Hospital.  Our drive will continue until the end of November.

Food Drive-Our school is also participating in a food drive for the Round Rock Serving Center.  Thank you for sending in non-perishable food to help our people in our community.

TAG Parent Information Night-The TAG teachers will host an information night on Tuesday, November 8th, 2016 in the library. The meeting will be held from 6:00 to 6:30 PM and is for parents of students not currently in TAG, who are interested in learning more about the program.

Read about our week-

Reading-We finished up our beginning study of expository text. We will continue to read non-fiction and practice strategies to deepen our understanding, but our focus for the next two weeks will be on reading and discussing poetry.

Writing-Our expository/opinion pieces are almost done. We will finish those up and celebrate our writers. Writing with an introduction that includes a thesis statement or central idea and at least two reasons with lots of supporting details and examples as well as a strong conclusion is challenging, but we are working on doing that with independence and style. We will continue to refine our expository writing skills. Then we will begin writing poems of different forms. We will use lots of imagery, sensory words, and strong word choice.We will include some personification, similes, and metaphors. Line breaks and stanzas will also be important as we organize our thoughts into poems. Poetry writing is super fun.

Grammar-We will continue to work on combining sentences and compare legal and illegal ways of dealing with two independent clauses or complete sentences.

Spelling-We will continue to work on plurals. This week we will learn about making words that end with o plural. If the word ends with a consonant+o=add es, and if the word ends with a vowel +o=add s. For ex. hero=heroes, kangaroo=kangaroos.

Social Studies-We will research and create projects in class to teach others about Texas explorers. We will focus on Cabeza de Vaca, Coronado, and La Salle and will discuss the impact that these explorations had on Texas, its native people, and the world.

Dates to Remember:

Monday, Oct. 31- Wear Pajamas for Donation Drive Winning of week 4, Monthly Challenge Lunch, Flashlight Reading in the library, Service Club 2:50-3:50 in rm 512

Tuesday, Nov. 1-Walk/Bike to school day, PTA General Meeting 9am, Senior Choir Concert 6:30-7:15

Wednesday, Nov. 2-Senior Choir Concert-1:55-2:30

Thursday, Nov. 3-Report Cards go home

Friday, Nov. 4-Homework packets due,Reading Response Letter due, Spelling test, Turn in Reading Logs as you finish them, FCE Spirit Day! Wear green and purple.

Monday, Nov. 7- College Shirt Day, Writing Club 2:50-3:50 in library

Friday, Nov. 11-Veteran's Day Program at 9:00 for 3rd-5th.  Homework packets due,Reading Response Letter due, Spelling test, Turn inReading Logs as you finish them, FCE Spirit Day! Wear green and purple.

Monday, Nov. 14-College Shirt Day, NO SERViCE CLUB TODAY

Friday, Nov. 18-Boogie O'Rama at 12:05, Homework packets due,Reading Response Letter due, Spelling test, Turn in Reading Logs as you finish them, FCE Spirit Day! Wear green and purple.

No school-Nov. 21-Nov. 25-Thanksgiving Break

Have a wonderful weekend.  Thank you for sharing your child with me.  

Sincerely,
Pam

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