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, November 11, 2016

Newsletter

Hi,                                                                        November 11, 2016

Friday was an amazing Veterans Day Celebration!  Thank you to Mrs. McDaniel and our choir for a wonderful performance and to all the Veterans who were able to attend.  It was our honor to recognize you and thank you for your service to our country.

Reflections-Congratulations to all our Reflections participants!  Thank you for your extra effort to submit your creative work to this program.  Congratulations to Lillian and Aubrey for having their work selected to move on to the next level of judging.  Great job!

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.  We collected over 100 toys so far and our goal is 200 toys.  Our drive will continue until the end of November.

Food Drive- We are collecting food for the Round Rock Serving Center.  Please drop off non-perishable food in the purple barrels by the front office.

Read about our week:

Reading: Poetry continued to be our focus and we practiced a strategy for reading poetry.  First read the entire poem to get the gist of its meaning.  Then read a stanza and sketch a picture of what we see happening in our minds. Continue drawing and taking notes as we reread to monitor comprehension and help us understand.  Talk about the poem with someone.  Discuss the meaning of the poem and our questions, connections, inferences, as well as the theme.   Talk about the descriptions used and phrases or words that we thought were amazing.  Thinking in this way helps deepen our understanding.  Then read it aloud and enjoy the sounds.  If there are questions, answer the questions, but continue to go back and reread to check your answers and your thinking.  We will do a little more with poetry next week and will also read some literary nonfiction about Thanksgiving.

Get ready for our Thanksgiving Break Read-a-thon!  More information to come!!!!

Vocabulary:  We will have a quiz on poetry and figurative language vocabulary words as part of reading on Friday.  See the attached lists and definitions and your child can also study on Quizlet.  (Moellenberg and Bartholomew’s Class, Poetry words and Figurative Language words)

Writing: I love reading poetry written by your children.  It allows the kids to use their imagination and have some freedom in their writing.  This week we wrote some poems from an object’s point of view.   Then we found photos to go with our poem and added some eyes.  With the help of Mrs. Smith in the library and Mrs. Erickson, we used the iPads and chatterbox to make videos of our photo reciting our poem!  They are amazing!  If your child logs onto their google drive (s######@student.roundrockisd.org, password =two word password) , then they should be able to see it.  I will have the kids share their videos with me and we will try to get them on our website for you all to enjoy.  We will write about Thanksgiving this week and things that we appreciate.

Spelling:  Our review week of plurals was a success on our tests, but now we need to continue to work on applying the correct spelling of plurals in our writing.  This week we will practice possessives and plurals in our spelling and grammar.  This can be confusing and we need to think carefully about the words and their meaning to use the correct form.  (example: child, child’s, children, children’s, lady, ladies, lady’s) 

Social Studies:  Explorer projects are looking great!  We will continue to work on them next week and will begin presentations by Thursday.  The children are using their creativity to teach others about Cabeza de Vaca, Coronado, and La Salle and the impact that their explorations had on the world.

Dates to remember:

 Monday, Nov. 14-College Shirt Day, NO SERVICE CLUB TODAY, Family Fun Night at Chick-Fil-A

Thurs. Nov. 17-Thanksgiving Lunch at school.  Our lunch time is 11:25.

 Friday, Nov. 18-Boogie O-Rama at 12:05, Homework papers due, Reading Response Letter due, Spelling and Vocabulary test, Turn in reading logs as you finish them, Dress for Boogie O'Rama.


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

Monday, Nov. 28-Service Club 2:50-3:50, College Shirt Day

Wednesday, Nov. 30-Picture Retakes

Friday, Dec. 2-Homework papers due, Reading Response Letter due, Spelling test, Turn in Reading Logs as you finish them, FCE Spirtit Day! Wear purple and green.

Monday, Dec. 5-College Shirt Day, Writing Club 2:50-3:50

 Thursday, Dec. 8-Passport to Literacy-Literacy Night at FCE-More info to come

 Friday, Dec. 9-Homework papers due, Reading Response Letter due, spelling test, turn in reading logs as you finish them, FCE Spirit Day! Wear purple and green.  Ridgeview Middle School Choir, Band, and Orchestra Concert at 1:15 pm

I am actually out of town for a wedding in Florida and will return to school on Tuesday.  I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.  Keep reading this weekend and enjoy some family time.  Thank you for sharing your child with me.

Sincerely,
Pam
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