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, May 21, 2017

Newsletter

Hi,

We had a busy, but great week!  

Field Day was today and it was so much fun.  The water relays are always fun!  The new Star Wars water game was exciting!  The slides and all the other relays are also amazing.  The tug of war is great for many and frustrating at the same time.  The class played hard and are probably exhausted.  Thanks to all of our volunteers and helpers.  It was a wonderful afternoon.

Mentor Meeting on Tuesday-We had our last mentor meeting of the year on Tuesday.  We gave them each a copy of the book written by the students and played lots of fun games together.  The mentors live at The Court in Round Rock Assistive Living Center.  If you want to write to them or go visit, just give a call and let them know and stop by. Randi is the activities director there and she can set a visit up for you.  Address: 2700 Sunrise Rd, Round Rock, TX 78665 Phone: (512) 640-5053 I am sure that they would love to see you.  

Skyping with students in Africa-We attempted to skype with Trudy Marshall in Africa. Trudy Marshall is the founder of Libraries of Love and we collected books and money for them in January.  Our plan was to skype with some students in Uganda and we created lots of questions to ask them.  Technology was not cooperative and we are hoping to try again.  We loved learning about Africa and Libraries of Love would love to extend that with personal contact with some of the students.

Texas Hero Projects-The kids worked hard on their Texas Hero Projects and did a great job presenting.  Researching can be challenging and writing information without just copying it can be tricky.  Bibliographies are another area to continue to work on.  The kids had a lot of fun using Quizletlive.com to practice facts about the heroes and did well on our Texas Heroes test!  Overall, we learned about lots of interesting figures in Texas History and will continue to study more about Texas in the next few weeks.

End of the Year Party-Our end of the year party will be on June 1, 2017 at 9:15 am-10:15 am.  We will have brunch/breakfast type snacks and have some fun activities.  We will do autographs in the afternoon.  It will be a great wrap up to a wonderful year of learning together.  Look for a sign up genius soon.

40 Book Challenge-We are wrapping up our 40 Book Challenge.  Lillian, Jaida, Gage, and Divya have passed the 40 Book Mark!  Many students are very close.  Continue to read and turn in notecards!  We will have a celebration on Wednesday during lunch for everyone who read an award winning book in April or May and will have a special celebration for everyone who read 40 Books!  I hope that everyone enjoyed reading this year and tried some new genres.  Even if you didn't read 40 books, hopefully everyone read a few more than they may have in the past and found some new favorites.  Keep reading all summer.  I will set up a chat in our Google Classroom, so that everyone can share and comment on great books that they read during the break.  Happy Reading!

Student-led Conferences- Thank you to everyone who attended conferences.  

Read about our week:

Reading-We are working on the 40 Book Challenge and sharing our favorite books with each other.  We also did an interactive read aloud with Amelia and Eleanor Go for a Ride, which is a picture book about Amelia Earhart and Eleanor Roosevelt.  We will read and discuss Chris Van Allsburg's books next week.

Writing-We enjoyed writing some fantasy stories and wrote a personal narrative this week for our DCA.  We will work on some persuasive pieces next week.

Social Studies-We will continue to learn about the Texas Revolution and the Republic of Texas.  We will also use Google Translate to write letters in Spanish and English to children in an orphanage in Honduras.  

Dates to remember:


Monday, May 22-Wear College Shirts, Last Writing Club of the year from 2:50-3:50, Spelling Test

Thursday, May 25-Volunteer Appreciation Breakfast-7:30, PTA General Meeting at 8:00

Friday, May 26- Be sure to turn in completed reading logs. Wear FCE shirts or purple or green

Monday, May 29-No school-Memorial Day

Wednesday, May 31-Reading Challenge Lunch Treat-Award Winning Book and Students who met the 40 Challenge Goal

Thursday, June 1-Last Day of School- End of the year party 9:15 am-10:15 am

Thank you for sharing your child with me.  Let me know if you have any concerns.

Sincerely,
Pam
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