Hi, February 5, 2010
We had a wonderful, science project sharing week! The children worked hard
on their projects and we learned about very interesting things such as the
parts of a bird, whether plants have feelings, what sweet things ants like
best, favorite cookie sheets, volcanoes, hovercrafts, electricity, static
electricity, does rubber expand in heat, grizzly bear food chains,
barometers, dog behavior, stalactites and stalagmites, plants grow well with
energy drinks, symmetrical vs. asymmetrical pinwheels, self defense in
lizards vs. snakes , wildflowers of Texas, fire and oxygen, whether adults or
children like sour tasting things, and whether balloons will inflate using
vinegar and baking soda. Wow! Those are great ideas and the presentations
went extremely well! Thanks for helping so much at home!
Math and Science Night Tonight! It will be a fun evening. I hope that you
all can attend. The science fair projects are on display in the cafeteria.
The Book fair is going on in the library. We will be playing fun math
games. We will have teachers reading books in Mrs. Arnold’s room (I’ll be
there from 6:15-6:30), and Promise Pizza will be selling slices for $1 each.
Reading-This week in reading we read some more about the Titanic and finished
up our Texas leaders projects. We also learned about media literacy. Check
out the website called Don’t Buy It on PBSkids.org. It is also found on the
links page on our class website. Next week we will be learning about fact
and opinion and some internet safety. Many of the kids are reading A
Paradise Called Texas or The Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson
independently and we will be meeting in groups to talk about these books.
Writing- Hooray! We finally finished writing about our happiest days! The
personal narratives turned out very well and we will be posting them in the
hallway after we read them for each other. We will be working on writing
memoirs next and having writing camp during the week of February 16-19.
Fourth Grade Writing Camp is awesome! We will be decorating the classroom
like a campsite and writing all day long for four days. We will be wearing
bandanas (each class will have a different color), the kids can bring in
their sleeping bags, we will be singing camp songs, and reviewing all of the
writing strategies that we’ve been working on this year. We will also be
publishing a new piece! It is so much fun! Look for an email from Mrs.
McCartney to find out how you can help.
Author’s Tea-Friday, February 19, 2010 at 1:45. We will have an author’s tea
to share our work from writing camp. Come camping with us for an hour!
Math-Measuring has been fun this week. We are reviewing multiplication,
division, area, perimeter, fractions and decimals as part of our warm ups and
then working with measuring. We played a great game called Race to the
Gallon. The kids worked in teams and used a spinner to determine what unit
they will use (pints, quarts, gallons) and then another spinner to determine
how many of that amount they will put into the gallon jug. The team that
filled the jug in the least amount of turns was the winner. We worked on
conversions from pints and quarts to cups as part of the game. We also
figured out how much soda some of us drank in a year. A can of soda is 1 ½
cups. How many cans do you drink in a day or week? There are 365 days in a
year and 52 weeks in a year. How many quarts or gallons of soda do you drink
in a year? It was a fun, challenging problem to figure out. We also figured
out how many pints of tomato juice we would need if our dog got sprayed by a
skunk and our bathtub had a capacity of 21 gallons. Your children are doing
well discovering creative problem solving strategies and sharing them.
Science-We shared our science projects for most of the week and will continue
working on soil a little next week. We will have a science test on soil on
Wednesday. A study guide will come home on Monday.
Valentine’s Day Party-What a wonderful response! You are all very generous.
Thank you for offering to donate the supplies for our party. Our party is on
Friday, February 12 from 1:45-2:45. Your child is welcome to make or buy
valentines for the class to pass out at the party. Mrs. McCartney sent home
a list of the student’s names. Let me know if you need it sent again.
Thanks again!
Dates to Remember:
Friday, February 5-Math and Science Night-5:00-8:00 (Bookfair also)
Wednesday, February 10-Early Release Day-Science Test on Soil
Friday, February 12-Valentine’s Day Party at 1:45
Monday, February 15-No school for students-Set up for writing camp
Tuesday, February 16-Friday, February 19-Writing Camp
Friday, February 19-Author’s Tea (to share our work from writing camp) 1:45-
2:45
Thank you for sharing your children with me! Have a great weekend and let me
know if you have any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Hi, Jan. 29, 2010
We had a fun and interesting week. We had a few changes to our schedule and
the children were flexible and behaved appropriately. They should be proud
of themselves. On Tuesday, we were lucky enough to have an assembly called,
African Safari. An amazing storyteller who grew up in Kenya shared stories
and artifacts (clothing, musical instruments, crafts)of her country and her
culture. We even learned an African dance. We had an educational and fun
time. We had group picture day on Wednesday which changes things in our
schedule and today our pen pal visit was cancelled due to the weather. We
will be rescheduling soon.
Reading: We are continuing to read books about the Civil Rights Movement and
discovering the big idea in them. We also are reading books and biographies
of Texas Leaders. We are demonstrating what we’ve learned by writing about
the person’s early years, their accomplishments, their characteristics, our
opinions of them, and why their accomplishments were important to Texas
history. We also have been focusing on new vocabulary in our reading. We
will continue with vocabulary next week using an article about the Titanic.
We will also be learning about media literacy. (more info. to come!)
Writing: We have been working hard with our conferencing, revising, editing,
and typing of our stories about our happiest day. We will definitely finish
these early next week and continue reading and learning about memoirs.
Math: Decimals and fractions have been our focus the past few weeks. We
took an assessment on those concepts today and will be moving on to studying
measurement. We will be reviewing fractions, decimals, rounding, area, and
perimeter as warm ups each day and then will be using problem solving to
learn about measurement with lots of hands-on activities.
Science: Weathering and erosion is our current topic. We did an experiment
putting some chalk, a cinnamon stick, and a sugar cube each in their own baby
food jars. We observed each item and then shook the jar for 30 seconds to
look for changes. The most changes occurred when all three items were placed
in a jar together and we shook it for 30 seconds. Ask your child about this
experiment. It was fun and really demonstrated the effects of weathering or
breaking of rock. Today we completed a web quest and looked at many cool
sites that taught us even more about how the land changes. Next week we will
begin presentations for our science projects on Monday. Then we will finish
up studying weathering and erosion.
Dates to Remember:
Monday, February 1-Completed Science Projects due-Presentation will begin
Friday, February 5-Math and Science Night at FCE-Book fair also. Come and
check it out!
Wednesday, February 10-Early Release Day
Friday, February 12-Valentine’s Day Party after specials (more info to come)
Monday, February 15-No School, Staff Development Day
Tuesday, February 16-Friday, February 19=Writing Camp for Fourth Grade-We
will need help transforming our classroom into a camp site.
Thursday, February 25-Six Flags Reading Logs are due-Read at least 6 hours
and get a free ticket to Six Flags! What an awesome deal! I’d love to see
everyone in our class participate in this! Let me know if you didn’t get a
reading log paper.
Have a wonderful weekend! Let me know if you have any questions or
concerns. Thank you for sharing your children with me.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
pam_bartholomew@roundrockisd.org
Hi, Jan. 22, 2010
It was a busy and fun week. We enjoyed learning about Civil Rights
especially in honor of MLK Day. We have been reading and discussing the
important people and events of that movement. We will continue with this
study next week.
Reading: We had been reading biographies of authors and then some of their
writing to find evidence of the author’s lives in their stories. We also
read some biographies of people from the civil rights movement. We have been
using text features like photos, captions, charts, timelines, drawings, maps,
etc… to gain more information and a better understanding of what we’ve
read.
Writing: We are reading memoirs and getting ideas about them to begin our
writing of memoir. Our stories about our happiest day are almost done. Our
fourth grade is lucky enough to have a wonderful teacher, Mrs. Cordon,
helping us with our writing conferences. Mrs. Cordon is a teacher
facilitator with our school and she has been meeting with some of our
students while I am also conferencing with others to talk about the great
things that the kids are doing with their writing and what the next step to
improve the writing could be. We are using story mountains, storytelling,
timelines, and drawings to help us plan our work and rereading our favorite
authors to help us to add details and descriptions to our own writing.
Math: We are continuing to work on fractions and decimals. We made a cool
number line that shows equivalent fractions and decimals and where they fall
on the number line. We have solved problems using fractions and decimals and
played some games to help with our understanding. We will continue with this
concept next week and will have an assessment on Thursday or Friday.
Social Studies: The Texas Revolution is happening in our study of Texas
History. We made a chart of our things we’ve learned and things we are
wondering about the beginning of the fight with Santa Anna. We are also
reading aloud a historical fiction novel called Remember the Alamo to help us
get an even better understanding.
Science: Stream table demonstrations were done this week. We used earth
material (sand, clay) and a plastic table to show what happens to the land
during a rainstorm or flood. We had 2 tables on a slope to model a mountain
and 2 tables on a flat surface to be the plains. Then we had containers with
holes in them into which we poured water to represent the rain. Two of the
containers had a small hole to show a rain storm and two had larger holes to
represent a flood. In groups, we observed the earth material in thirty
second intervals. We had fun with the demonstration but would have had even
more fun if the earth material hadn’t been wet from a previous demonstration
that day. Because the soil was wet already, the effects weren’t as great.
We will still be talking about the results and may try to recreate the
demonstration next week. We will also discuss weathering, erosion, and
layers of soil.
Science Projects: The research and projects are really coming along. I have
been so impressed with your children’s work so far. Keep it up! Don’t
forget that the science projects are due on Monday, February 1.
Pen Pals: Our pen pals are coming to our school on Friday, January 29 at
10:15 in the library. We wrote letters for them today that I will deliver on
Sunday. We would love to have you come and join us!
Reminder:
Picture Day is Wednesday, January 27.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Hi, January 15, 2010
We had a great week! Our Electronics Party was fun and it was a nice reward
for following the expectations in the cafeteria! The class with the most
touchdowns will win the Super Bowl for the grade and will get to eat lunch on
the stage with some special secret guests. We are tied for the most
touchdowns. We’ll see what happens!
Reading-This week in reading we read about Ruby Bridges and made a chart of
things we learned and things that we wondered. Then we read books written by
Patricia Polacco and wrote a chart containing the events in her books that
could have really happened in her life. When we read her autobiography we
realized that just about all of her books are about real events in her life.
We concluded that we, as authors, can also take small moments in our lives to
include in our writing.
Next week we will be reading some biographies of Texas heroes. We will also
read historical fiction and our textbook to find events and facts from the
Texas heroes lives represented in fiction and nonfiction text.
Writing-In writing we wrote our persuasive letters and did a great job! Look
for them in the hallway and then coming home. Let us know if your child
convinced you to do something.
We also began learning strategies to use when writing to a prompt. We will
be doing this in early March for our TAKS test. We use the acronym RUPR to
help us understand the prompt. R-read the prompt, U-underline the FAT-P, (F-
format, A-audience, T-topic, P-purpose), P-plan, R-read the plan then
revise. We practiced all the ways we’ve learned to plan our story, drafted
some leads, and began writing our rough drafts. Next week we will revise and
edit then write a final copy. We will then begin reading and writing memoirs.
Math- We took a district math benchmark this week which covered fractions,
multiplication, and division. Most of the children did well. I will continue
to pull small groups to work on areas that were not mastered and to extend
children who have already mastered some of these concepts. We started
working with decimals using decimal squares to color in the tenths and
hundredths. We have been playing some games to practice and will continue
with decimals next week.
Science-Soil has been our focus this week. We did an experiment on Friday of
last week to see which soil (sand, clay, peat moss, and potting soil) would
retain the most water and found that sand retained the most. The sand
retained the most water, the potting soil was second. The peat moss and the
clay retained barely any water. Then we discussed the texture of the soils
and planted radish seeds in the wet soil. We each made a hypothesis about
which soil would be the best for growing radish seeds and made daily
observations this week. The seed in the sand sprouted first but the seeds in
the potting soil grew the most. Look over the paper that came home today.
We will be doing a quick assessment on Tuesday on properties of soil then
will begin talking about weathering and erosion.
Social Studies-Next week we will integrate social studies and reading by
reading biographies of Texas Heroes and finding events from the biographies
in our textbooks and historical fiction books.
Pen Pals-Our pen pals will be coming to our school for a visit on Friday,
January 29 at about 10:15ish. We would love for you to join us in the
library.
Science Project-Checkpoint on Friday, January 22nd. Bring in a rough draft
of data or some kind of evidence to show that you are working on your project
for a completion grade.
Have a great Martin Luther King Day! Let me know if you have any comments or
questions.
Thanks,
Mrs. Bartholomew
Hi, January 8, 2010
Happy New Year! We are all tired but happy to be back together. We had a
busy week.
Reading- We are reading fiction novels and also learning about persuasive
materials. We had fun coming up with reasons why we should (or shouldn’t)
have recess, discussed the strategies that people use to try to persuade
someone, and worked on some media literacy. We read ads and wrote about why
they were or were not persuasive. We read an article about marine mammals in
captivity and discussed the strategies that the author used to try to
persuade us. Next week we will choose a topic and write a quick persuasive
piece. Some of you may be getting letters trying to persuade you for a
special item or a pet. Good luck!
Next week, we will also be reading some autobiographies of authors and
comparing them with the fiction writing of the author to look for
similarities.
Writing-We will be taking the Writing TAKS test in early March. Next week we
will be working on test taking strategies when writing to a prompt. We will
be completing a piece as a result of the study. This week we continued to
work on our fiction writing and most of us have finished a rough draft. We
will still work on revising and editing these stories.
Math-Fractions have been our focus and we took an assessment today. Most of
the kids seem to be understanding the concepts of fractions pretty well!
Next week we will be working on decimals and relating them back to
fractions.
Science-We completed some fun projects about the phases of the moon and
examined the calendars that everyone did last month. We started learning
about different types of soil and will continue with more experiments next
week. We will be planting some radish seeds in different types of soil and
comparing the results.
Science Projects- You received an email yesterday about science fair
projects. I attached the letters and PTA information on a new page on our
class website today. Signed papers with the topic that your child will be
studying are due on MONDAY.
If you need an idea for your project, go to http://www.sciencebuddies.com and
do a science fair interest survey. Fill in the survey. It will ask you
about the types of things you like and then give you some possible
experiments from which to choose. Check it out!
IMPORTANT DATES!!!!!!!
• Jan. 11 is the deadline to turn in topic-
• Jan. 15 is the deadline to enter the Science Fair
• Jan. 28 and 29 are the dates for project assembly at school(if needed)
• Feb. 1 is the date for the presentations to the class
• Feb. 5 is the Science Fair
Grades will be taken for each of the checkpoints.
Thank you for sharing your children with me. Have a wonderful weekend and
let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Happy Holidays! 12/18/09
We had a wonderful Holiday Party today! Thank you so much to Mrs. McCartney
and Mrs. Misiak for organizing everything and to all the parents who came to
help and/or donated supplies. The kids were busy and had fun making
ornaments, playing Bingo, creating friendship mix, and decorating each other
like trees! It was great to see them all working together and enjoying each
other.
Reading: This week we continued to read fantasy stories and wrote about our
questions, predictions, connections, and feelings. We also analyzed a
character in our book and discussed a character’s inner and outer
characteristics. We will continue reading some fantasy and also begin
learning about persuasive writing.
Writing: This week we wrote letters to our pen pals and we wrote Thank you
notes to Mr. Eddie, our Junior Achievement Instructor. We also worked on our
fiction writing which we will continue in January. Fiction is tricky because
we’re creating the entire story not retelling a personal experience. We’ve
worked a lot on telling our story to others and checking for understanding.
Math: Fractions are fun and we have been exploring fractions using a variety
of manipulatives. We have used fraction strips, fraction circles, number
lines, Cuisenaire rods, and pictures. We have worked on identifying
fractional parts of a whole and fractional parts of a group. We have shared
wholes into fractional parts and identified equivalent fractions. We’ve used
fraction strips to compare fractions as greater than and less than and have
begun to use fractions on a number line. We will continue with fractions in
problem solving when we return in January and will then be moving into
decimals.
Science: We completed our moon charts and will be learning more about the
phases of the moon and how the moon causes tides.
Social Studies: We learned a lot about early towns in Texas and the Austin
Family. We took a Social Studies Benchmark to show what we know.
Our pen pal visit went very well on Wednesday. We interviewed our friends
about their holiday traditions and their ancestors. We also played
Christmas Bingo, completed Holiday Puzzles, and shared our latest writing
pieces with them. Our pen pals will be coming to visit us on Friday, January
29. You are welcome to come and join in the fun!
We had fun with our reading buddies this week. We made gingerbread houses
with the first graders in Mrs. Garcia’s class on Monday and then read holiday
books together today. They are very special to us.
Be sure to work on the Holiday Reading Log over the break. Challenge your
child to read more than 200 minutes. Buy books for presents and encourage
them to read by showing an interest in reading yourself.
D
on’t forget that our class website has tons of fun links that help encourage
practice and/or discovery in a variety of subject areas. If your child is
bored over the break, play on some of these cool websites and practice
fractions, science, social studies, reading, writing, math facts, grammar,
etc….
Thank you for sharing your child with me. Contact me if you have any
questions or concerns. Be safe and enjoy your family. Have a wonderful
holiday and I’ll see you in 2010!
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Dear Parents, Dec. 4, 2009
Thank you to everyone who was able to come and celebrate with us for our 2nd
Author’s Tea! Thank you also to our wonderful writers for creating such
interesting stories using lots of our writing strategies. Thank you to the
Misiak Family for making brownies and cookies for us. Everyone worked really
hard to get our stories published and I saw some real improvements with our
writing skills. We will be working on realistic fiction stories next and
will try to get a rough draft completed before the holidays. We will be
sharing them with our 1st grade reading buddies on the morning of Friday,
December 18.
SNOW!!!!!
The children were hoping for some white precipitation today and
luckily we did get a little. It began snowing right after lunch so we went
outside for a few minutes before we went to specials. It was very exciting
even though it was pretty short-lived.
Ridgeview Musicians
We were entertained this morning by the Ridgeview Middle School Band,
Choir, and Orchestra. They did an amazing job. I wonder if the concert will
inspire some of our class to try out music in middle school.
Gingerbread Houses
On Monday, December 14, we will be making gingerbread houses with our
1st grade reading buddies. Thank you to those parents who offered to donate
some supplies. We still need a few items. Let me know if you would like to
contribute something.
Pen Pal Visit
We will be visiting our pen pals at The Court on Wednesday, December
16 at 9:45 am. We will be writing them letters and making a holiday craft
for them. We will also be sharing our writing with them and interviewing
them about their holiday traditions as children and adults. If you would
like to attend our field trip with us, let me know. We would love to have
you!
Reading
In reading this week we learned some characteristics of Fables and
read some legends, myths, and folktales. We will continue to do this during
the last two weeks of the quarter. We will also be reading and examining
persuasive writing and doing a little research on different cultures in Texas.
Writing
We completed our second personal narratives this week and will be
working on writing realistic fiction during the next two weeks.
Math
We took an assessment on area and perimeter today and will be
continuing to review these concepts. We will be starting work with fractions
this week. We will be doing lots of fun hands on activities to help us
understand the concept of fractional parts of a group and fractional parts of
a whole.
Science
This next week includes a science benchmark. We will also be
continuing to learn about states of matter. The density experiment that we
did on Wednesday was really interesting and fun. Corn syrup was more dense
than water which was more dense than alcohol which was more dense than
cooking oil. We dropped item in our layered liquid cup and watched them sink
or float. The grape was suspended above the corn syrup! It was very cool!
Social Studies
We will be sharing holiday traditions as well as trying to learn
about cultures in Texas and early immigration to our state. You will be
getting a questionnaire sent home on Monday about the countries where your
ancestors lived before America. If you have any stories, photos, or
artifacts, we would love use them to help us learn. If you are not sure
about your family history (I only know that someone in my father’s family
lived in Germany and that is it), that is fine but try to help your child
choose a country that could be one where your ancestors lived so that he/she
may use that country for a little research.
Send in your old magazines!
Forest Creek is collecting old magazines for recycling. Each class
is stacking them up to try to have the highest stack. Send in your old
magazines and help us make a huge pile while we help recycle!
Have a wonderful weekend!
Thank you for sharing your child with me. Let me know if you have any
questions or concerns.
Pam Bartholomew
Hi, 11/20/09
We had a GROOVY time this week! The kids did very well performing in the
Groovy-O-Rama. They looked great also. Thank you for coming to enjoy the
performance.
Reading: Fairytales was our focus this week. We independently read lots of
tales. We read some together as well. We learned about the elements of fairy
tales and common themes in them. We compared two Cinderella stories using a
Venn Diagram. We read a version of Cinderella and using a thesaurus replaced
several words with one of their synonyms. We also wrote diamante poems which
takes the shape of a diamond and either compares two opposite characters in a
fairy tale or describes a change that the character has undergone. We had a
fun fairy tale week. When we come back from Thanksgiving break, we will be
reading myths, legends, tall tales, and fables.
Writing: We are working hard on the drafts for our second published pieces.
They are adding thoughtshots or adding the internal story. (What are you
thinking and feeling during this story?) We are also trying to add details
that move the story along and are true and accurate rather than random
details. Adding flashbacks or predictions about the future are also
techniques that we will be trying to improve the quality of our personal
narratives. We are planning our next Author’s Tea for Friday, December 4 at
9:30-10:25. You are welcome to attend and hear our wonderful author’s read
their stories.
Math: We continue to work on multiplication and division in problem solving
and have been working with graphs as well. We graphed results from questions
that we asked our pen pals (How long have you been in Texas ? and What is
your favorite color?) We also measured the heights of our first grade
reading buddies and ourselves and graphed the two sets of data together. We
will continue to work on measurement and perimeter next week.
Science: Ocean’s Affect on the land has been our focus. We did a
demonstration to show what would happen to the land if the ocean water
increased and we did an experiment showing the effects of wind on the beach.
We put 300 ml of sand inside 2 liter plastic bottles and added 300 ml of
water. Then we put the bottle on its side and blew into the bottle using a
straw. We watched the waves that we created eroding away our little beach.
We will be reading more about erosion of beaches and will be completing a
concept chart on this topic today. We will then be having an assessment on
Oceans and Land on Monday. The study guide is coming home today and I
emailed one to each of you last night. Thank you for working with your child
at home.
Dates to Remember:
No school on Wednesday (11/25), Thursday (11/26), and Friday (11/27)
Happy Thanksgiving!
Science Test on Monday, 11/23
Author’s Tea on Friday, 12/4 at 9:30
Have a wonderful weekend!
Contact me with any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Pam_bartholomew@roundrockisd.org
Hi, November 13, 2009
We have had a very busy but fun week!
Our Pen Pal Trip on Tuesday was a big success! The residents were very happy
to see us. A few of the residents changed their minds about being in our Pen
Pal Program but we recruited some new ones while we were there and we had
plenty of new friends. The children interviewed the pen pals about their
family and Veteran’s Day, ate snacks, and read our stories to them. We also
had four of our students perform a short play about Veteran’s Day. Great job,
Tyler H., Tyler B., Duncan, and Kyla! Everyone sang My Country Tis of Thee
at the end of the trip. We brought games but ran out of time to play them.
We will be going on our next trip on December 16. One of the residents had
just moved in on Saturday and told us how happy he was to be part of the
group! (using the microphone after we sang!) We will be writing more
letters next week.
Firefighters Show Today! We had fun learning about smoke alarms and fire
safety with the Round Rock Fire Department today. Ask your child about it.
Reading/Social Studies: We finally completed our study of Explorers. The
students chose an explorer to write about then wrote a letter, diary entry,
or composition as if they were the explorer. We talked about this piece
being written in the first person rather than the third person. Then we
typed our writing on the laptops. We worked on logging on, saving onto our
file, and creating a folder in our file for fourth grade work.
We also read procedural text and used it on Tuesday morning before our field
trip. We read the recipe for Rice Krispy treats and used the information to
make them in the microwave for our pen pals.
Most of the children started reading about Texas Missions today and taking
notes about what they’ve learned. We will be talking more about Texas
Missions on Monday.
Writing: We are gathering more entries and coming up with ways to generate
ideas for personal narratives. These could include remembering turning
points in our lives, thinking about a strong feeling and writing about a time
that we felt that way, or using family stories that have been retold and
writing about them. We also are using planning boxes as we write to focus on
a specific individual skill like adding more details, making a movie in my
head, using paragraphs, creating a strong ending, using creative words,
etc…. We put the planning box at the top of the page and remember to try
that as we write the entry. We also examined our published writing and made
a list of strategies that we used effectively and are being sure to continue
to use those strategies in our daily writing.
Math: Multiplication and division problem solving has been fun. We are
continuing to solve problems and learn new strategies from each other. We
learned the Box Method for multiplying a two digit number by a one digit
number. We will keep practicing this to add to our box of strategies and
will be doing the Box Method with two digit by two digit numbers next week.
We will also be doing some measuring and beginning learning about area and
perimeter.
Science: We had fun learning about the sun’s energy. We watched several
challenging Brainpop movies online which taught us about photosynthesis,
wind, and the water cycle. We also made some charts with drawings and acted
out these concepts to help us to understand and remember the information. We
will be taking the test today and learning about oceans next week.
Tonight is the Harvest Festival from 5-9. Hope to see you all there.
If you would like to receive the Thursday Folder information as an email
rather than paper copies, let me know and you can help us to be GREEN!
Have a great weekend!
Let me know if you have any concerns or questions.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Hi, November 8, 2009
We have had a busy week and we are excited about our first Pen Pal trip on
Tuesday. We will be leaving Forest Creek at about 9:15 and will be
returning about 11:15. As a class, we created some interview questions and a
schedule for our visit. We will be interviewing our pen pals, then playing
some games and having a snack then reading our stories that we wrote for our
Author’s Tea. We wrote letters on Friday that I will drop off this weekend.
Our pen pals are excited as well. Feel free to join us at The Court.
Reading/SS: We finally finished our research on our explorers and now we will
each choose one of four explorers to write a composition about his life. We
will be working on this paper this week and then beginning some research on
missions in Texas.
Writing: We wrote letters to our pen pals and will be making cards for our
trip on Tuesday. The children did a great job practicing the interview with
a family member and taking some notes. We talked a lot about asking more
questions based on the pen pals answers to get more information and try to
get more of a story from our pen pal. We also are working on improving our
personal narrative writing by thinking about strong feelings to generate
ideas and then writing with details using lots of “show, not tell”
strategies.
Author Visit: Meeting Phil Bildner was the highlight of our week. He is
very energetic and engaging and the children were mesmerized by his
presentation. He also worked on “show, not tell” with the children by acting
out the story or feeling and writing about the movie that you then see in
your mind. It was wonderful!
Math: We have been doing some difficult algebra problems involving patterns
and multiplication and division. We are using manipulatives and multiple
strategies to try to solve problems. We made paper towers by using multiples
of large numbers (we also used a calculator) then worked on strategies to
figure out the multiple without counting on the paper strip. We will
continue with more multiplication and division and then will begin working
with measurement.
Science: We are finishing up our study of sun’s energy. We learned that the
sun causes the creation of winds, plant growth, and the water cycle. We will
be working on exploring properties of matter with lots of hands on
experiments later this week and next week.
Don’t forget that Wednesday, November 11 is an early release day and that the
Harvest Festival is Friday, November 13.
Have a great week! Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Thanks,
Pam Bartholomew
Hi, October 30, 2009
We had a wet but great week! Our week started out with a writing benchmark
test with included a proofreading passage and writing an entire composition.
This took us most of the day. Tuesday we took a reading benchmark. These
were difficult but everyone worked very hard.
Red Ribbon Week has been fun and educational. We read about medicine, drugs,
alcohol and tobacco and the effects of these substances on our bodies. We
read about making good choices and dealing with peer pressure. We watched a
video from the counselor and we wrote a personal pledge. We also met some
Stony Point Cheerleaders and Football Players. That was especially fun!
Thank you to all of our PTA parents who helped out with Red Ribbon Week.
Pen Pal Visit!
You will be receiving a permission slip for our first Pen Pal Visit of the
year. We will be going to The Court Retirement Facility on Sunrise Road on
Tuesday, November 10. We will be leaving Forest Creek at about 9:20 am and
returning at about 11:15 am. I will be going to visit the residents on Sunday
and begin matching up students and pen pals using introductory letters that
the children have written about themselves. Then the students will be
planning what to do at our visit next week. We will need some parents to help
us out and go to The Court with us. You will need to follow the bus and meet
us there. I recently talked to the Activities Director at The Court and she
told me that our previous pen pals are very anxious to meet our students. In
fact, one of our pen pals has already written letters to her new pen pals and
can’t wait for us to begin our program. Let me know if you are interested in
attending and assisting the children with their interviews and meeting our
wonderful pen pals. We are very excited to get started and meet our new
friends!
Reading-This week we are continuing to research explorers and next week we
will be researching missions in Texas.
Writing-We are working on raising the quality of our personal narrative
writing. We have been reading short stories and books that contain amazing
writing and trying out the author’s strategies in our own writing.
Math-Division has been our focus. We have been sharing many strategies for
division and multiplication in problem solving. Keep practicing facts at
home.
Science-We have completed our study of weather and are learning about the
sun’s energy and the sun’s role in the water cycle, the creation of winds, and
the growth of plants. We will be continuing this next week.
Social Studies-We are using social studies content to practice reading skills
and strategies. Explorers and Missions are our focus at this time.
Next Tuesday, we will be having a writing camp (for one hour) with published
author, Phil Bildner. I added a link to his website on our class website
under links. He writes picture books and chapter books. Many of his books
have a sports theme. An order form came home in Thursday folders about
ordering a copy of one of his books. In class, we read Turkey Bowl and The
Greatest Game Ever Played. We are looking forward to reading more of his
books and to working with Mr. Bildner.
Texas Book Festival is this weekend in Austin. Be sure to go check it out
this great event. Phil Bildner will be there on Saturday afternoon.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
464-5388
Hi, October 24, 2009
Your children did a fantastic job reading their stories on Friday at our
Author’s Tea! They were so excited to share their work. Thank you to all the
parents who were able to join in our celebration. Thank you to all the
parents who donated treats and supplies. It was a wonderful morning!
Red Ribbon Week-Oct. 26-Oct. 30
This week is Red Ribbon Week which is your child will be learning about making
good healthy choices and being drug free. We had an assembly on Friday
afternoon with Officer Claypool from the Round Rock Police. We will be
reading a poem called “Jellybeans Up Your Nose” (ask your child about it) and
reading and responding to some information from our health books. Pledges
will be written and hung on our doors and we will wear different clothing each
day to celebrate.
Monday-Wear red-“Coyotes are Red-dy to make good choices.”
Tuesday-Wear shirt inside out-“Drugs turn you inside out.”
Wednesday-Wear favorite team jersey-“Be a Hero, not a zero.”
Thursday-Wear your favorite hat-“Use your head. Don’t do drugs”
Friday-Wear your FCE t-shirt or purple/green-“Coyotes show good character.”
Bring a canned good(s) to benefit the Round Rock Serving Center by Thursday.
Reading
This week we read a book called The Mary Celeste. This is a true unsolved
mystery about a ship that was found and the crew was missing. We read this
over two days and asked questions while we read. Some of the answers were
found as we read on and others were left unanswered. It is a wonderfully
interesting story and we had lots of theories about what may have happened.
We also began reading more about explorers and will be continuing that
research next week.
Writing
We worked hard to conference, revise, and edit to get our pieces ready for
publication. Paragraphing is difficult. We worked a lot on that and on
creating strong endings. We will be reading some wonderful short stories this
week as models for our writing and will be using them to improve our entries
as we get ready to write our next personal narrative.
Benchmark testing
Last week we had a math benchmark on concepts that we have covered this week.
We will be having a reading and writing benchmark this week. We will be
starting on Monday with our writing benchmark which will include a
proofreading passage and writing a composition to a prompt. Then on Tuesday
we will have our reading benchmark.
Math
We continued to work on problem solving in math using algebraic patterns,
multiplication, addition, subtraction, and division. We will be working on
more division this week using manipulatives, pictures, charts, tables, games,
etc… Continue to practice math facts at home. If the kids know their facts
quickly, it helps them to solve difficult word problems more easily.
Science
We will be finishing up learning about weather this week with our first grade
reading buddies and a cloud project. We will begin learning about the sun’s
energy and how it helps us.
Social Studies
We will continue researching explorers this week and will begin learning about
missions.
Dates to Remember:
Oct. 26-Oct. 30=Red Ribbon Week
October 30-Reflections due to Mrs. Arnold
Unicef boxes will go home this week. Return them if you wish to school by
November 5 so we can count the money and send it off to help children around
the world.
Have a great week! Thank you for sharing your children with me. Let me know
if you have any questions or concerns.
Thanks you.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Dear Families, October 18, 2009
I enjoyed meeting with many of you last week for Parent/Teacher/Student
Conferences. Your children are working very hard in class and I am very
proud of their efforts. If you have any questions or concerns for me at any
time, please let me know.
Busy Week: We had conferences, individual picture day, book fair preview,
and a Mad Science Assembly. It was all fun and thankfully your children are
very flexible and don’t let a change in schedule worry them. Ask them about
the science show. Jason got to be a volunteer on stage and he did a great
job!
Reading: We read a book together called, Encounter, and made inferences as
we read. It is a book telling about the landing of Columbus from a native
boy’s point of view. It is a very interesting literary nonfiction book and
we used it to kick off our study of explorers in Social Studies. We also
formed book club groups this week. Each group decided how many chapters they
wanted to read each day. Some of the groups had very big plans. We will
meet with our teams on Monday to discuss how far everyone is and make
adjustments as needed. We will be meeting every Tuesday and Thursday with
our Book Clubs to discuss the book. Each child is writing responses as they
read in the book club section of their reading response books. By Tuesday
they should have two responses written and one more for Thursday’s meeting.
A response should include the title of the book, the date, predictions,
questions, feelings about the book, and connections that they had while
reading. They should be prepared to talk about what is happening in the book
so far and sharing their ideas and thoughts (predictions, questions,
feelings, connections).
Writing: We are working hard on revising and editing our personal narratives
to get ready for our Author’s Tea on Friday, October 23 at 10:00am. They are
turning out to be very creative and memorable stories. We look forward to
celebrating our writing with you on Friday.
Math: We took an assessment on multiplication and division and everyone did
well. We are all using some great strategies to solve problems and checking
our answers using another strategy. Rereading the question to make sure that
it was answered and that it makes sense and is reasonable is important to
remember. We are still working on practicing facts (keep working at home!)
to make them more automatic. We began looking at input/output charts,
patterns, and a little bit of algebra this week. We will continue with more
of that this coming week also.
Science: Weather is cool! We observed the clouds, temperature, and
precipitation for five days and will be charting that on a graph. We learned
about cold fronts and warm fronts. We worked on a webquest in which we
reported and predicted weather. We wrote awesome, descriptive poems about
weather. This week we will read some more about clouds and make a poster
representation of some different clouds. We will be reading some graphs
about air pressure and temperature and answering questions about them. We
will then be learning about the sun and the sun’s energy.
Social Studies: Explorers will be researched and written about this week.
We will be integrating some of this study into our reading time.
Dates to Remember:
Book Fair all week! Open late on Tuesday. Write phone number and Driver’s
License number on checks. Donations accepted for books for kids in need.
Tuesday, October 20-first book club meeting-two response should be complete
Thursday, October 22-second book club meeting-one more response should be
complete
Friday, October 23-Author’s Tea in our classroom at 10:00am
Friday, October 30-Reflections projects due to Mrs. Arnold (optional but
strongly encouraged to submit)
Have a great week! Thank you for sharing your child with me!
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Hi, October 11, 2009
Weather was a big focus for last week and Mother Nature cooperated. We had
been checking outside temperatures and looking at clouds. We also learned
about warm fronts and cold fronts and examined the weather map from the
Austin American Statesman each day. We were fortunate to have a cold front
and a storm come through Austin and Round Rock to help us truly experience
what we’ve been learning. We will continue to learn more about weather this
week.
Service Learning Grant-Hurray!!!!!
I just received an email that we received our service learning grant from
RRISD! We will be becoming pen pals with residents at The Court Assistive
Living Facility and will be taking a bus to visit them four times throughout
the year. We will be interviewing our pen pals and learning about their
lives. We will also be writing an essay about them to make into a class book
at the end of the year. Mrs. Couture’s class will be working on this project
with us. I am very excited about getting this started and we will be writing
our first letters this week! More details will be coming.
Reading
Last week we worked with poetry. We practiced reading and identifying
different forms of poems. We used an article about sharks to think about our
background knowledge then read the article and wrote about what we learned.
We also figured out that sometimes our background knowledge is incorrect and
we were able to clear up those misconceptions. Reading weather articles from
National Geography for Kids was also fun and we wrote about our thinking.
This week we will be integrating social studies and reading and learning
about explorers.
Writing
We worked on our second drafts and using timelines to plan our stories and to
slow down and expand sections of our work. We will be choosing a draft to
revise and edit and then work on publishing it. We will be having our
Author’s Tea on Friday, October 23 at 10:00. You are all invited to attend
and hear our wonderful authors read their work.
Math
Multiplication and division in problem solving has been our focus. We will
be taking an assessment on Tuesday and then beginning to use what we know to
figure out patterns and input/output charts. As always we will be sharing
our strategies and writing about our thinking. We will also be using some
algebra!
Science/SS
We will continue to learn about weather this week and begin researching
explorers and the impact they had on Texas.
I will be going to a district meeting off campus on Tuesday afternoon. Call
the office if you have an emergency or need to get in touch with your child.
I will be here in the morning.
Calendar
Tuesday, October 13-Going to the library to get new books
Wednesday, October 14-Picture Day
Friday, October 23-Author’s Tea at 10:00 am-All are welcome!
October 19-23-Book Fair in the Library
I enjoyed seeing all of you at conference time. Thank you for attending!
Have a great week! Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Thank you,
Pam Bartholomew
Hi, October 2, 2009
This week has been very fun! To help us review what we know so far about maps
and Texas each table group worked together to create a Texas cookie. We used
icing of different colors to represent the four major regions in Texas. Then
we used Twizzler licorice for the rivers, M & M’s for the cities, gumdrops for
the mountains, and Red Hots for resources. We also made a map key and used
paper labels and toothpicks to identify each area. We had a wonderful time
and it was a great hands on way to learn. Thank you to Mrs. Misiak, Mrs.
Hamby, and Mrs. Balli for coming in to help with the project. Thank you also
to all the parents who donated supplies. Since so many hands had touched the
food for the project, we used small cookies to decorate and take home to
enjoy.
We reviewed our material in Social Studies for the test today and worked hard
on the actual assessment.
REWARD:
We earned a Touchdown in the cafeteria for good behavior so we voted on a
class reward. The children chose to have an electronics party on Monday
during their recess time. They can bring in something hand held that they can
play. They can only bring in games that are approved for everyone (E rated).
They can bring in an I-Pod or MP3 player but only they can listen to it.
Laptops with approved games will be available. The electronics will only be
out during recess time.
Sydney on Broadcast!
Sydney did a fantastic job giving a book commercial on our school’s broadcast
on Tuesday. She wrote about a book called In My Family to celebrate Hispanic
Heritage Month. She spoke loudly and clearly and told why she liked the book.
If your child would like to do a book commercial, he/she needs to write what
he/she would like to say and we can go over it before we give it to Mrs.
Smith, our librarian. I would love to see more Bartholomew Bats on TV talking
about books that they’ve read.
Students can also share an art project that they’ve done. Talk to Mrs. Arnold
for more details.
Reading:
We used non-fiction text to study text features (titles, subtitles, photos,
charts, maps, glossary, bold words, etc..) and determined their purpose in
helping us understand the content. We read an article about UNICEF and
decided to use boxes for trick or treating to help raise money for children in
need around the world. We also read a fantastic non-fiction text called
Lightning and talked about words that our inner conversation uses when we
learn new information. We heard ourselves saying things like, “Wow”, or “Oh
my!”, or “That’s so cool!”, or “Very Interesting!” etc… We took note of when
we used those words then wrote down the information that followed. Noticing
that we’ve learned something new will help us remember the new information as
well as help us to monitor our comprehension as we read to fix things if we
aren’t understanding.
We also practiced reading our reader’s theaters and will be performing those
for our first grade buddies on Monday afternoon.
We have been reading poems in lots of different poetry books and began looking
at the elements of poems. Next week we will look more at the forms of poems
and try writing some.
Writing:
We have chosen an entry to begin revising and have drafted leads and written
the personal narratives in our draft books then drafted some endings. We now
have chosen a second entry to begin revising. We will be choosing one of
these pieces to publish and will be having an author’s tea (you will be
invited) in about two weeks. I have enjoyed reading your children’s writing
and have especially enjoyed conferencing with them individually or in small
groups to discuss what they are doing with their writing. We have some very
creative storytellers in our class!
Math:
Multiplication has been fun! We played a game called Circles and Stars and
have begun working on a Candy Box Project. In this project, the children are
designers in a candy factory. They need to design candy boxes for 6, 12, and
24 pieces of candy then write a memo to the president of the company with
recommendations for which boxes are best and why. We also worked with problem
solving with larger numbers and shared strategies that we can use to solve
these more difficult problems. We have been writing and talking a lot about
our strategies. Your students have some very good mathematical minds. Next
week we will be working on division within problem solving.
Social Studies:
We had a great time finishing up our study of maps, regions of Texas, and
Native Americans in Texas. We will be working on Science for the next few
weeks studying weather.
Conferences:
We will be having most of the conferences on Friday, October 9 and Monday,
October 12. If your conference time is not good for you, let me know and I
will get back with you with some alternative times. My goal is to meet with
every child and a parent or guardian to discuss the child’s personal goals for
fourth grade.
Hamster Update:
Poochie and her babies are doing great. The babies are getting bigger and
furrier each day. The babies still seem to be nursing so we will be keeping
everyone together until Monday at least. We have five students in class who
will be taking home a baby hamster. (with parental permission) They will be
bringing in a cage with food, a water bottle, a wheel, and bedding by Monday.
If the babies seem like they are weaned and ready, they will be going to
their new homes on Monday afternoon. If not, then we will keep observing and
play it by ear. Thank you so much to the parents who agreed to adopt a baby
hamster. I will be keeping Poochie and one of the babies in separate cages.
They aren’t allowed to stay in our classroom everyday but will be there for
monthly visits. It will be exciting to see the babies continue to change as
they grow.
Don’t forget to save your Boxtops and Campbell’s labels. Turn them in at
school!
Dates to Remember:
October 5-Running Club begins after school
October 7-Walk to School Day
October 8-OLSAT testing in AM
October 9-some conferences after school
October 12-no school for students, Parent/Teacher/Student Conferences
Have a great weekend! Let me know if you have any comments or questions.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Hi, Sept. 26, 2009
We had a fun, rainy week. We had indoor recess most of the week and had fun
playing games. A few children had the opportunity to write on our class blog
during indoor recess. Encourage your children (and you can also) to read the
conversations on our blog and add their own comments. Go to the Forest Creek
website, then to Our teams, then to Pam Bartholomew which will take you to
our class website and click on Bartholomew Blog. Thanks for encouraging your
children to use technology.
Reading: We discussed some poetry this week and read many poem books in our
independent reading. We read and discussed a poem called Dreams by Langston
Hughes and inferred meaning from that poem then compared that to a poem
called Belinda Blue by Jack Prelutsky. Ask your children about these two
poems. We also started practicing some reader’s theaters. We will use these
to talk about drama and also to practice fluent reading. We’ll be performing
for our 1st grade reading buddies in Mrs. Garcia’s class. We also talked
about times when we need to monitor our comprehension (being tired,
distracted, text too hard, unknown words, confusing sentences, etc…) and fix-
up strategies (reread, use context clues, ask questions, ask friend, teacher,
or parent for help, etc…) This week we will continue with some poetry and
practicing our reader’s theaters.
Writing: We have chosen stories to take out of our writer’s notebook and
begin revisions. We will work on leads, sequencing, endings, word choice,
etc… as we revise. We will be having an author’s tea in the middle of
October. More details to follow.
Math: We began studying multiplication using arrays this week and discussing
strategies for multiplication. We solved some story problems and shared
strategies and discussed factors, prime numbers, and composite numbers. We
will continue multiplication and begin a little division this week.
Social Studies: We had a wonderful time rotating teachers to learn a lot of
information about Texas. We learned about the four regions, cities and
rivers, and Native Americans of Texas. We also learned about Longitude and
Latitude. We will be reviewing and learning a few more things about maps
this week and having a Social Studies Test on Friday. A study guide will
come home on Monday. We will also be using a Texas Cookie Project as a
review on Wednesday. See the previous email for more information.
Progress Reports were sent home on Friday. Please sign and return them
ASAP.
Conference Forms came home on Thursday. Thank you to those parents who sent
in their time requests. I will be making our schedule this weekend and
getting confirmation times and dates to you on Monday. If you haven’t sent
in your form yet, please do so.
Goals: We will be talking about goals this week and I would love your
input. Please fill out the goal sheet with your child and send it back to
school by Monday so that we can work on your child’s individual goals.
Poochie and the baby hamsters came in for a visit this week. The babies have
fur and are getting lively and big. They are eating food and still
nursing. Their eyes will be opening soon. The kids were very excited to
see them and they’ll be back this week for another visit.
Dates to Remember:
Wednesday, Sept. 29=Texas Cookie Project
Friday, Oct. 2=Spelling test (individual list and dictation sentences)
Social Studies Test
Friday, Oct. 9=parent/teacher/student conferences afterschool
Monday, Oct. 12=no school for students
Parent/teacher/student conferences all day
Thank you for sharing your children with me. Please let me know if you have
any questions or concerns.
Pam Bartholomew
Hi, September 18, 2009
We had another fun-filled week!
We had an assembly on Thursday about Character Education which was very
educational and entertaining. We had elections for our school’s Student
Council. We had wonderful speeches from our candidates and then everyone
voted for one representative. The two with the highest amount of votes were
chosen. Our class representatives are Abigail and Jason! They will be
meeting on Mondays afterschool to discuss school issues. If we have any
concerns or suggestions, we will be sending them to Jason and Abigail to take
to the student council.
Our baby hamsters are one week old! I posted photos of them on our class
website. Write on our blog also. We want to talk to each other
electronically about those babies. I will plan on bringing them to school on
Monday.
Reading:
In reading we talked about characters and ways to describe characters. We
also discussed how characters may change throughout the story. We will be
finishing up with this next week. We also continued to discuss theme and
continued to work on our One Pager Project. Next week we will be reading and
discussing poetry as a class and in flexible literature groups. We will also
be starting a reader’s theater play and practicing for fluency. We will
continue to read non-fiction and will be using features from the text to help
us understand the text.
We have had fun using comic strips to learn about context clues and improve
our vocabulary.
Writing:
We have been gathering writer’s notebook entries and using some strategies to
improve our writing. Small moment or seed stories are our goals for personal
narratives right now. We are also working on writing them in a step by step
sequence with real, true, exact details rather than telling about what
happened. Next week we will be choosing one of our entries to take through
the writing process.
We also started using inspirational quotes as models of good writing. We
look at a quote and discuss its meaning then discuss conventions about the
sentence or sentences. (capitalization, punctuation, spelling, homophones,
similes, metaphors, etc…) Research has shown that it is better to learn
correct sentence structure, capitalization, punctuation, etc… using correct
sentences rather than having children correct sentences with mistakes. We
will be teaching using correct sentences and assessing using incorrect
sentences to practice the format of TAKS and will be looking for correct
sentences in their writing.
Spelling:
We practiced our spelling words and sentences this week and took our spelling
test today. We will be exploring new word patterns next week.
Math:
This week we worked on rounding and many children had some difficulty with
it. We will continue to work on this in small groups. We will be
introducing multiplication next week using arrays. For homework this
weekend, the students are asked to bring in a container or something that is
arranged in an array. (egg carton, craft boxes, tackle boxes, empty candy
boxes,etc…) Be creative and we will be using them to start learning about
multiplication.
We will continue to work on problem solving throughout math class and share
our strategies.
Social Studies:
We began social studies this week with working with maps. We examined
different types of maps and the four main regions of Texas. Today we began a
rotation of 4th grade teachers. Each of the teachers will be teaching one
concept (Native Americans of Texas, Latitude and Longitude, Rivers and Cities
of Texas, Coastal Plains Region, Central Plains Region, High Plains Region,
and the Mountain and Basins Region. Each afternoon, the teachers go to
another classroom and teach their lesson and in the process the entire fourth
grade learns a lot about Texas. We began today with our first rotation.
Mrs. Kirby came to our room and the class did a great job while they learned
about Native Americans. Yesterday, I taught them about the Mountains and
Basins region. This has been a fun way to learn a lot and get to know each
other even better.
Book Clubs:
In Thursday folders there were some book order forms that came home. If you
would like some books and order on-line then we will get a free book for our
classroom. If there is a parent who would like to organize the book orders,
let me know.
Class Published Books:
We are creating a class book out of our Important Poems. We will be sending
them off to the publisher to be created into hard back bound books. If you
would like to order one, send in your order form and payment ASAP. If you
don’t want to purchase a book, please send back the form signed with the NO
checked. When I send those forms in, then our class will receive a free copy.
Calendar:
Sunday, Sept. 20-Free Museum Day in Austin-Go explore at one of the awesome
museums downtown with free admission.
Have a great weekend! Don’t forget to write on our blog!
Thanks,
Pam
Hi, Sept. 11, 2009
Wow! We have had an exciting day!
Rain (indoor recess, memory box sharing, grandparent’s day, and BABY
HAMSTERS!) We got through it well and even took a science test and did a
short math assessment as well. Your children are wonderful and have been
working hard amongst all the distractions.
Reading- We have been working on listening to our inner conversation while we
read. We think about questions that come to mind, connections that we’re
making, inferences discovered, and our feelings about the text. We have been
using sticky notes to keep tracks of our thinking and then coded questions to
see if they were answered later in the text, if we made an inference or used
our background knowledge to help us answer them, or if they are lingering
questions that were never answered. Ask your child about the book, Charlie
Anderson and some of the questions that we had while reading. Next week we
will be working on fix-up strategies to use while we are monitoring our
comprehension. We also talked about themes in books and how they are
different then summaries. We’ve been reading Patricia Polacco books and have
started doing a One Pager Activity. This activity includes the title,
author, and theme of the book with two quotes that support the theme. We
finish these next week also.
Writing-We have been using strategies to generate ideas for writing personal
narratives. We used a book called Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge to think
about our memories from our lives to help come up with ideas for story
entries. Writing this week included sharing our memory boxes. Being able to
tell a detailed story aids in the writing of a well-organized detailed
story. We all told a story about an item in our memory boxes and next week
or for homework the children can go back to their boxes and write a writing
entry about an item from their box. We also thought about an important
person, listed small moment stories about that person, told the story over
our fingers to a friend, chose one of the stories to sketch the sequence of
the story then began writing. We repeated this process using an important
place. Ask your child about this process and look in their writer’s
notebooks next week and read some of this awesome writing.
Spelling-This week we explored with the following word parts: graph
(graphic, photograph), bio (biology, antibiotic), age (storage, wreckage,
encourage), and cian (musician, magician) Today we choose words for our
individual spelling lists. We also used words that we had misspelled in our
writing to add to our list. Next week we will be practicing our words for
our test on Friday. Everyone brought a paper home that has the two dictation
sentences for next week and there will also be a surprise sentence to review
some of the words from last week. The dictation sentences will be part of
the test next Friday.
Math-We had fun working with larger numbers this week. We watched videos
from our Envision math series and solved a bunch of problems. We even went
to a website that has all the state populations from 2000 and 2007. With a
partner we clicked on a state on the map and added the state name and the
populations to a chart. Then we took all ten states that we chose and put
the 2007 populations in order from least to greatest. This site also had
cool statistics about how many 9 year old girls and how many 9 year old boys
were in each state during that time period. It was very fun and gave us a
real application for those larger numbers.
Science-We did some fun explorations with shells to practice the science
processes. We observed them, communicated about them, measured them, and
classified them. This helped us remember and experience most of the science
processes and reviewed safety procedures. We took a test on this material
today. Thank you for helping your child review the science study guide.
We will be starting social studies next week. We will be learning about
maps, the regions of Texas, and Native Americans.
Thank you to all of the grandparents and parents who came to school today.
We loved having you all here!
Reminders: We cannot have peanut butter or peanut products in our
classroom. Please remember this when sending in snacks.
We also cannot have hand sanitizer that contains alcohol. We have some new
hand sanitizer that is alcohol free to use.
Don’t forget that Wednesday, September 16 is an Early Release Day. The kids
will be dismissed at 12:45. We will be eating lunch at school.
Have a great weekend and thank you for sharing your children with me.
Pam
9/4/09
Hi,
We had a wonderful week! The children worked hard in school and even
completed their first published piece. They each wrote a poem about
themselves using similes, metaphors, and/or adjectives. I was very impressed
with the descriptive language used by the children. The poems are hanging out
in the hallway if you’d like to come take a look.
Reading: This week in reading we continued to establish the routines of
reading workshop. We talked about reasons to abandon a book and how to buzz
or talk to others about books in small groups. This will help prepare us for
book clubs. We are doing an author study of Patricia Polacco books. We have
been reading her books in small groups, pairs or individually, written reading
response entries based on the books, and talked or buzzed in our small groups
about the theme of the books read.
We also talked about the ways good readers ask themselves questions as they
read. We read a book called How Many Days to America? By Eve Bunting and
asked questions on sticky notes. Ask your child about this book and the types
of questions that he/she asked. Next week the kids will be working on a One
Pager project which will be based on one of the Patricia Polacco books that
they read. The work will be done in school.
Writing: As I stated in the first paragraph, the children published their
first pieces this week. Memory Boxes will be due next Wednesday. Each child
will need a box or bag that is decorated by him/her. Inside the box will be
items that represent the child’s likes and personality. These could include
photos, small items, etc.. that are important to the child. Please don’t send
in things that are breakable or very, very special. Your child will be using
their memory box to tell small moment stories about each item to the class.
We will be presenting memory boxes throughout the week. Being able to tell a
story with expression and details will help the students to become better at
writing stories. We will also be writing small moment entries about an
important person in his/her life and an important place in his/her life.
Spelling: Today we had our first spelling test on our individual spelling
words and our first dictation sentences assessment. Thank you for studying
this week. Next week we will be doing word exploration with the word parts:
graph (photograph), bio (biography), cian (musician), and –age (encourage).
We will be discussing the meanings of these word parts and brainstorming
words. We will also look for examples of these word parts in our reading.
Next Friday we will be choosing individual spelling lists and getting
dictation sentences to practice.
Math: We have been working on number sense and place value. The kids have
been solving problems using their 1,000 books and adding and subtracting using
larger numbers. We will continue with this next week. They are doing a
wonderful job sharing their strategies in problem solving. They are great
mathematicians!
Science: We have been talking about science safety and science tools. We
also have been doing science processes using seashells. So far we have
observed our shells using our senses and then wrote about the shells to
experience communication in science. We will be having a science test next
Friday. A study guide will be coming home on Tuesday.
Homework: Please look at the purple folder every evening. Your child will be
bringing home a paper about homework in the folder today. The assignment
notebook needs to be initialed each evening and reading minutes need to be
signed by Monday morning to verify that at least 100 minutes of reading has
been completed. Thank you for helping your child be responsible for at home
work. If you have any questions let me know.
Snacks: Be sure to send in a snack each day. Also make sure that they are
peanut/peanut butter free snacks because we do have an allergy in our room. I
have attached a link to a list of peanut free snacks to this email. It is
also on our class webpage.
Reminders: Sign up for PTA and Marathon Kids.
Classroom Needs: We are in need of low-odor expo markers. (many of ours were
dry). We also need some post-it notes. We are using these to keep tracks of
our thinking in reading.
Volunteer Opportunities in the classroom= Is there anyone who enjoys planning
the class parties? We have a mom who would like to be the homeroom parent but
would prefer to share the job with another parent. Let me know if you are
interested.
We also need a parent to take care of Scholastic Book Club orders. Let me
know if you are interested.
Calendar:
Monday, September 7, 2009= No School Labor Day
Wednesday, September 9, 2009= Memory Boxes are due. (look for rubric in
purple folder)
Friday, September 11, 2009=Science Test (study guide will come home on
Tuesday)
Have a safe and relaxing weekend! Thank you for sharing your children with
me!
Pam Bartholomew
464-5388
Hi,
August 28, 2009
I usually try to send an email informing you about our week and upcoming
activities. I try to have it ready by Friday but sometimes you will get one
over the weekend or on Monday. This newsletter will also be on our webpage.
Your children were fantastic in school this week and I am looking forward to
a very productive and fun year!
We did a lot of team building activities (name games, classroom quilt,
classmate survey, etc...) We also began discussing our expectations in the
classroom as well as in the hallway, bathrooms, cafeteria, and playground.
We began talking about expectations for reading and writing workshop and
practiced some of those procedures. We read some great books like First Day
Jitters and The Crayon Box that Talked. We voted on our realistic fiction
read aloud and began reading Because of Winn Dixie together. We wrote about
a time when we were nervous or had the jitters and did some free writing as
well. We learned some new vocabulary such incorrigible, longevity, and
interminable. Ask your kids about these words and the comics that went with
them. We are using context clues and inferencing to try to figure out the
meanings and then writing the actual meanings. We have been doing problem
solving in math and working with our 1,000 books. In science we did a marble
and flour demonstration to start using observation skills. We read an
observation or description of a pair of scissors and then described our
pencils and oreos using our senses. We used oreos to illustrate what quality
work looks like as well. (ask your child about this!)
Our class is really turning into a caring community. We talked a lot about
how to work together, help each other, and learn from each other. They are
wonderful children and we are off to a great start!
In your child’s purple folder, they have spelling dictation sentences to
practice for their spelling test next Friday. They also have individual
spelling words that they wrote in their assignment notebook. Test on
Friday. Practice this weekend, if you’d like.
Writer’s Notebooks need to be decorated by Monday. Your child can use
wrapping paper, stickers, photos, drawings, etc…. to make their notebook
their own. They will be sharing their decorated notebooks on Monday. Thank
you for your help with this.
Reading logs (in assignment notebooks) need to be filled in for the week and
weekend. Each child should read at least 100 min./week outside of school. A
parent also needs to sign this log. We will be checking these logs on Monday.
Your child will have reading response journal homework on Mondays and
Tuesdays and writer's notebook entry homework on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
They will also have a math paper or game to do each night. Let me know if
you have any questions about homework. If your child is spending a lot of
time on homework each night, please let me know. I don't want them spending
more than about 40 minutes on their assignments. Reading time is extra.
This week our school will be giving Universal Screeners in math computation
and reading comprehension. These will take only a few minutes on Tuesday and
Wednesday.
Parent Teacher Back to School Night is on Thursday at 6:00. We will meet
together in the gym and then will briefly come to our room to look around.
Hope to see you all there!
Thank you for sharing your children with me. Let me know if you have any
questions or concerns!
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
Pam_bartholomew@roundrockisd.org
464-5388
Hi, August 22, 2009
It was wonderful to meet all of you last night. You did a great job making
our class birthday graph and the "How are you getting home?" graph. Your
Texas photos were very interesting and I enjoyed reading about where you've
been in TX. If you didn't get to bring in a photo yet, please do so by
Tuesday.
Have a fun weekend! Batfest is a celebration in downtown Austin today. There
are bands playing and arts and crafts booths. Of course, there is also the
gigantic bat colony living under the Ann Richards/Congress Ave. bridge that
you may be able to see. Now that you are a Bartholomew Bat, you may need to
check it out!
Be sure to read everyday and I am looking forward to seeing you all on
Tuesday!
:)
Mrs. Bartholomew
August, 2009
Hi!
Welcome to Fourth Grade at Forest Creek Elementary School! We are the
Bartholomew Bats in honor of the Mexican Free Tail bat colonies in Round Rock
(under the I-35 Bridge over McNeil Road) and in Austin (under the Congress
Avenue Bridge). I am very excited for the beginning of a new school year! I
am ready to get to know all of you. We will learn a lot and have fun in fourth
grade.
Supply Drop off is on Friday, August 21, 2009. If your last name begins
with A-L come to our classroom between 4:30-5:00 pm. If your last name begins
with M-Z then come between 5:15-5:45 pm. I look forward to meeting all of you
and your parents.
The first day of school will be on Tuesday, August 25. Yeah!!!!
We are displaying photos of places that we have been in Texas. Please bring
in a photo of you taken anywhere in Texas. We will attach it to our bulletin
board with our map. Thank you for helping us learn more about our wonderful
state.
Be sure to bring a book that you are reading to school on Tuesday. You will
be using it and sharing some of your reading interests with us.
You will receive a packet of forms and information at the supply drop off.
Please fill out the forms and return them to school on the first day. Thanks!
Don't forget to write something on our BLOG! It is on the class web page.
Contact me if you have any questions or concerns.
Get ready for a fantastic fourth grade year!
Pam Bartholomew
464-5388
pam_bartholomew@roundrockisd.org