Hard to Believe that it is the Last Week of 4th Grade!

Hi, It is hard to believe that we are already in our last week of 4th grade! I have had a extraordinary time with your children this year. I am excited to have more time for my family and reading, but am very sad about not seeing your children everyday. I am proud of the progress that your children have made this year! We will continue to work this week but do have several fun things planned as well. On Monday we will be gluing the bones that we found inside our owl pellets to black paper. The kids have found lots of bones from the rodents that the owl ate and have separated the bones from the fur. Using a bone chart, they have tried to identify the bones and label them. This activity compliments our reading of There's an Owl in the Shower. We will be finishing reading this book on Monday also. We researched the Northern Spotted Owls a bit and also wrote poems about owls as well as Character Cinquain poems about one of the characters in the book. We have discussed the impact that cutting in the old growth forests had on the owls and other animals that used that ecosystem as their habitats. It has been interesting to learn how most of earth's creatures are interdependent. On Tuesday our pen pals will be coming for our last visit of the school year. We have had a wonderful time learning about the past through the stories told to us by our pen pals. Writing letters to them gives us an authentic reason to write as did writing about them in our class pen pal book. Each child wrote a page about their pen pal and decorated a page of photos. Some children wrote a poem about his/her pen pal, some wrote an essay, and some wrote an expository piece with subtitles. The pen pals will be at FCE at about 10:30 am. We would love to have you come and join us. YOU ARE INVITED! On Wednesday, we will be having an Author's Celebration! We will celebrate the amazing writing that the children have completed this year by sharing our published books with you. Come to our room at 2:00. Each child will share the title and cover of his/her book with the entire group. Then we will break into smaller groups to read individual books. It will be a lot of fun and I know that the children are excited to share their books. Hope you can join us at 2:00 on Wednesday! On Thursday, we will be having fun with meal worms. We will conduct some experiments with the meal worms and take data on the results. We will learn about the life cycle of the meal worm and do some research on them. The meal worms will not complete their life cycle during this last week of school so the children are invited to take home a meal worm and then report back on our MOODLE page about the progress of their meal worm. If you do not want your child to bring a meal worm home, please let me know. On Friday, we will have a signing party with the entire fourth grade using our yearbooks or autograph books. We will also have our end of the year party. You will be getting an email on Monday afternoon asking for donations for our party. Our party will be in our classroom at 2:00 pm. Thank you in advance for helping to add to our fun! Check your Child's Back Pack Your child will be bringing home some workbooks. There will be a huge math book which we did use a lot throughout the year, a smaller blue reading/writing book which we did use a lot for multiple choice practice, and a white language book which we used a little bit. Be sure to use these books for practice over the summer so that your child keeps his/her skills strong for fifth grade. The students will also be bringing home their writer's notebook, reader's response notebook, word study spiral, math spiral, science notebook, and two social studies spirals. Look through these books with your child and celebrate all of their hard work this year. You may want to save a few of these. I love looking back at Blair's writing and other work from 4th grade and younger. It is fun for them to see what they found important and what their writing was like when they were young. Enjoy! Send in Erasers, Pencils, Food, and Books to Help Others Our school is collecting erasers and pencils for an orphanage in Honduras. A friend of mine organizes trips to Honduras to help children in an orphanage as well as homeless there. The group is going again in June and I asked her how we can help. She told me of how the children all shared one tiny eraser. Our class talked about how much they like having erasers and sharp pencils and how they tend to take them for granted. We already collected a lot of erasers and hope to collect a bunch more to help out these children. There is a box outside the office for the donations. Our FCE Service Club has been collecting food for the Round Rock Serving Center as well as books for the clients to use in the waiting area and take home with them. Our Service Club also worked on a public service announcement about reasons why people would use the services of the RR Serving Center and we will be finishing up the editing of our movie this week. Thank you again for donating books and food this year. We will continue to accept donations this week. Thank you again for a fantastic year. I hope to see you this week to be able to thank you in person. Be sure that your child is reading a lot this summer. Take part in a reading program at the public library or Barnes and Noble or one of the other cool programs. I would love to get emails or letters about books that they enjoyed. Practice math facts and math concepts online with First in Math as well as other sites on our class web page or any FCE teacher web page for lots of learning and fun. Write a lot also. Your child will be bringing home a stamped envelope with my address on it. They should write me a letter this summer and I will write them back. Then we can be pen pals! The children can also continue writing to their pen pal from The Court. Have a safe and wonderful summer full of fun! See you in 5th grade!!!!!!! Sincerely, Pam Bartholomew

Thank you!!!!!!

Thank you so much for a wonderful Teacher Appreciation Week! Each day was filled with surprises! The notes from the children touched my heart and I will treasure them. The gifts, flowers, fruit, candy, dinner, etc.... were all amazing! My family especially loved the dinner! Thank you also to the FCE PTA for all the lunches, breakfasts, and fun things this week. We enjoyed a free Zumba class on Tuesday which was great! I am walking in the Relay for Life on our FCE team so I will hopefully work off the many pounds that I've gained this week! Thank you again! I certainly feel appreciated! Your children did a great job in the Totally O'Rama today! Their outfits, hair, and make-up was also totally rad! Field Day is next Friday and our pen pals will be here to visit on May 22. We will continue to work hard in class and even get to take a Social Studies benchmark on Tuesday! On Tuesday afternoon we will begin working with our owl pellets which is so fun! Have a great weekend! Thanks again for everything! Sincerely, Pam Bartholomew

Wow! Teacher Appreciation Week is Wonderful! Round Rock Leader coming to our classroom tomorrow!

Hi, Thank you for all the incredible surprises for Teacher Appreciation Week! I've received yummy Hershey's Kisses (and some real ones) from the kids, beautiful flowers, and amazing cards and notes. I am so honored to be a part of your child's life. Thank you so much. I also received another honor last Friday. The district had a banquet honoring all of the Teacher of the Year Honorees from each of the elementary, middle, and high schools. At the banquet, each principal went on the stage and told about the Teacher of the Year for his/her school. I was so excited to be there with Mrs. Lehnick, representing Forest Creek. Each of the teachers needed to write some essays about their teaching philosophy and the types of things that they do. Then a committee reads the essays and chooses a teacher to be the RRISD District Teacher of the Year. (one for Elementary and one for Secondary) I was so surprised and thrilled to be chosen as the Elementary Teacher of the Year at the District level. I will now write more essays and represent Round Rock ISD at the regional event. Thank you for all of your support this year. The Round Rock Leader will be coming tomorrow to interview me and take some photos of the children for the Saturday edition. They will be here after lunch. The children are going to be excited to be in the newspaper! Here's what we've been doing in class: We have two new friends! We have a tree frog (named Fred by the class) and a anole lizard (named Lizzie). The lizard was hiding yesterday but finally came out from under the water dish during inside recess and turned from brown to bright green right in front of the kids. It was so cool! We borrowed the pets from Living Science and they will be picked up next Friday. We will keep observing and learn more about them this week and next. Savanna brought in some adorable frogs and tadpoles last week. She caught them and helped us review the life cycle and complete metamorphosis! In the tank were tadpoles, tadpoles with two legs, tadpoles with four legs but still a tail, and little frogs. We were so excited to see the life cycle first hand and shared them with our first grade buddies. We began reading a book called, There's an Owl in the Shower today. We are using this book as a shared reading. I will read some chapters and we will write summaries and responses and discuss them. The children will also read some chapters for homework and write summaries and responses about them. This book will help us discuss some environmental issues and will lead us into disecting owl pellets next week and integrating science, math, writing, and reading. Writing about our pen pals is another activity that has been our focus. We will each write a page about our pen pal (essay, newspaper article, biography, poem, etc.. ) and decorate another page with some photos. These pages will be compiled into a pen pal book which we will send off to our RRISD printers and give to our pen pals. They will be coming to our school for their last visit of the school year on Wednesday, May 22. Come join us! In math we are practicing division and multiplication in problem solving situations and sharing strategies. We will continue reviewing all our math concepts for the rest of the year. We took a science benchmark today and overall the children did very well. We will be taking a social studies benchmark next week so we will be reviewing some more Texas history this week and next. Thanks again for all the wonderful notes and gifts for Teacher Appreciation Week. So you on Friday for the Totally O'Rama at 10:05! Sincerely, Pam Bartholomew

Spring Conferences coming up, Famous Texan Essay due on Thursday, Order hard bound book written by your child, STAAR testing next week

Hi,

Don't forget that our Famous Texans essays are due tomorrow. A bibliography is needed. Citation maker is a great link to use and it is linked to our class webpage, on the social studies link page, at the very bottom. We will also begin our presentations tomorrow. The kids have been working hard! Thank you for your support at home.

Order forms for our individual published books are due on Friday. I will be mailing the books on Saturday to be printed. Your child will bring a form home tomorrow if you didn't return one yet. Every child will get one free copy of the book. If you would like to order more, that would be great. The cost is $19.95 per book. If you don't want to order more copies, then sign and return the form with the NO box checked. The class has worked so hard on these!

Spring Conferences
It is time for spring conferences already! It is hard to believe that fourth grade is almost over! Please let me know a time that could work for you and your child. Please email me with your preferred times. Rank times as 1st (preferred time) , 2nd, and 3rd .

We will be talking about your child’s progress this year. Your child will share their favorite parts of fourth grade. We will also talk about strengths and areas for improvement.

I look forward to meeting with all of you and will let you know your scheduled time as soon as possible.

Wednesday, May 2
1:00-1:15
1:20-1:35
1:40-1:55
2:00-2:15
2:20-2:35
2:40-2:55
3:00-3:15
3:20-3:35
3:40-3:55
4:00-4:15
4:20-4:35
4:40-4:55
5:00-5:15

Thursday, May 3
3:15-3:30
3:35-3:50
3:55-4:10
4:15-4:30
4:35-4:50
4:55-5:10
5:15-5:30
5:35-5:50
5:50-6:10

Friday, May 4
3:15-3:30
3:35-3:50
3:55-4:10
4:15-4:30
4:35-4:50
4:55-5:10


Next Tuesday, your child will be taking the STAAR math test. We have been working hard reviewing and will continue to do so the rest of this week and Monday. Be sure to continue to work on math facts and math vocabulary at home.

On Wednesday, your child will be taking the STAAR reading test. We have been reading a lot and working hard on comprehension strategies. Be sure to continue to talk to your child about what he/she is reading.

The Texas Education Agency has information about STAAR testing and some released questions. We have gone over these at school but feel free to explore at home as well. The campus will be closed on these days to visitors as well as next Thursday because the fifth graders will be taking their STAAR science test. There will be free breakfast in our cafeteria on these days. A healthy snack is also encouraged and an early bedtime the night before. Thank you for helping your child do their best.

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

Sincerely,

Pam Bartholomew

Great Field Trip-Earth Week Activities-Famous Texan Essay due on Thursday

Hi,

We had a great time on our field trip today. Thank you so much to Mr. Schmidt, Mrs. Gawthorp, Mrs. Turner, and Mrs. Spencer for volunteering to chaperone. We had a bit of a delay waiting for our final bus to arrive but the children were patient and we still saw most of the museum and had fun. Be sure to ask your child about their favorite part of the museum. I know that the Star of Destiny movie was a big hit with most of them.

This week is Earth Week and we will be celebrating witht the following activities.

TUESDAY 4/17- 3R’s (REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE) Day -Bring an item to school that Forest Creek currently recycles, place into appropriate bin, and keep it out of the earth’s landfills! (juice pouch, plastic water bottle, ink cartridge, cell phone, alkaline battery, and aluminum cans). Keep using your Forest Creek green reusable water bottles! Available for purchase through the PTA Spirit Store. We will be sharing our recycable items in the AM.

• WEDNESDAY 4/18- Make that change day. Wear Green! How will YOU be better to the EARTH? Pass it on to a friend. (Fill out the small Green card located in envelope on the Go Green bulletin board and post it onto the bulletin board! -HOW WILL I HELP THE EARTH?)

• THURSDAY 4/19 Turn It Off day –Try conserving electricity, water, and reducing carbon emissions around your house (turn off water while brushing your teeth, turn off your computer, room lights, fans, walk don’t drive!). Don’t forget….tomorrow is ‘Walk to School’ Day to help celebrate Earth Day by keeping fuel emissions out of the air!

• ‘WALK TO SCHOOL’ FRIDAY 4/20 Go Green…Got Plants? – Go Green Plant Sale today… $1.00 per plant. And, be sure to check out the Forest Creek gardens…the whole area is really growing with numerous plants and beautiful outdoor art made by our very own students and our wonderful art teachers!

Don't forget that our famous Texan essay and projects are due on Thursday.

Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew

Fun Pen Pal Visit today!, Field Trip on Monday!

Hi,

We had a fun pen pal visit today! The children interviewed their pen pals while others videotaped the interview using a flipcam. We will be working to compile the footage into a pen pal movie. We also shared some of our special items and stories with our pen pals and some of them brought interesting items for us to see also. Mrs. Phillips, who has been with our pen pal group for five years, brought a calendar from Somerset, Iowa. She grew up there and the calendar contains photos from the 1930's, 1940's and 1950's. Her grandfather was a blacksmith there and the calendar contains a photo of him as a young man. It was very interesting to hear their stories from the past. We will be meeting with our pen pals one more time this year.

On Monday, we are going on our field trip to the Bob Bullock Texas History Museum. We will be leaving at about 9:00 and returning about 2:00. No one will be going to the gift shop so DON'T BRING ANY MONEY. Photos are not allowed to be taken in the museum so there isn't much need for the children to bring a camera. Don't forget to bring a sack lunch unless you ordered one from the cafeteria on your permission slip.
Let me know if you have any questions or concerns. We are going to have a great time!

Don't forget that our Famous Texans Essays and presentations are due on Thursday, April 19.

Have a wonderful weekend. Be sure that your child is reading a lot this weekend and practicing math facts.

Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew

Hard-working Day

Hi,

Everything went smoothly for our first day of STAAR testing. We will be completing Day 2 of the writing test tomorrow.

Remember:

Early to bed tonight.
Good breakfast tomorrow.
Healthy snacks are welcome.
No visitors at school.
Cell phones will be collected.
Positive attitudes and perseverance is encouraged!

Here is an email from the district.

Dear Parents and Guardians,
The 2012 Parent Climate Survey is now available.
Each year Round Rock ISD seeks parent input about the quality of the school environment and its academic programs.
We welcome your thoughtful feedback to help us identify our existing strengths and areas that need improvement.
We encourage you to complete one survey per student.
The survey will be available through April 30, in English: http://tinyurl.com/parent12english and in Spanish: http://tinyurl.com/parent12esp Thanks for your participation!


Thanks for everything and let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew