Winter Holiday!!!

Thank you!!!

Thank you all so much for a wonderful first semester. 
Thank you for sharing your children with me. Thank you
for the thoughtful class gift!  Thank you for the individual
 cards, cookies and gifts that let me know that you appreciate
 all the things I do.  Thank you for taking care of our adopted
staff member.  Thank you for giving the kids a fun party.
 Thank you for all the things you guys sent in to make sure
 the party was a success. Thank you, Thank you and Thank you
 a million times for all that you guys do.  I am so grateful for all of you.

I will miss your children so much over the break, but I know they 

will have wonderful stories to share when they come back. I hope

 you all have a fantastic winter break.  See you in the new year. 

Buddies

Winter party

December 17th-19th

The holiday break is almost here!  We only have a three day week next week! I cannot believe how quickly our time has flown by!  Thank you all for a wonderful first semester with your children.  I have enjoyed them all so much. 

Important Reminders:

• December 19 - Winter Parties/ Students Last Day
• December 21-January 4 - Winter Break/No School for Students and Staff

December 19th we will run a slightly different schedule.Our lunch will be at the same time, but we will not switch classes with Mrs. Marshall at all on the 19th and we will wrap up our classroom activities by 1:30 for the holiday party.  

• The holiday party is December 19th from 1:30-2:30 and all parents are welcome. 

Reading:

We are all done with our middle of the year reading assessments. We will have a reading DCA on Monday and will wrap up the very last of our reading groups. The reading groups were a lot of fun and we will pick back up in January with new books. 

On Tuesday we will have some fun activities with the book Snowflake Bentley. 

Writing:

We will wrap up sharing our biographies and finish our expository essays that we started last week.  The biographies have been great fun, and they are now hanging up in our room. 

Spelling:

We will pick back up with spelling after the winter break. 

Social Studies:

We will wrap up talking about the Texas Revolution before the break.  We will end with important figures of the Texas Revolution and with the Texas Constitution. 

Party Day:

We have lots of fun activities planned for the party day, like meeting with our buddies, making crafts, listening to stories of holiday celebrations in many cultures. 

We will leave our room at 1:00-1:30 to allow parents to set-up the party.  All help is welcome at this time.   Our party is from 1:30-2:30.  Then we will stop to pick up.  Please help your child to remember to send in their holiday item for the party. 

Thank you all for your support and help with making this a special time for your child. 

Over the break!  

Homework- the holiday break is a great time to relax and enjoy special moments with your children.  It is also a long amount of time away from school work.  This is a great time to encourage some daily small practice on Dream Box, reading on MackinVia, BookFlix, or watching academic videos on BrainPop.  All of these sites are paid for by the school district or your PTA dues and are a wonderful place to send your kiddo for some practice daily. If your child wants to keep a short diary of things they do over the break we can also make time to share those after the break with the class. 

I will miss your children very much over the few weeks of the break.  I hope that you all have a restful break with many wonderful memories created. I cannot wait to hear all about what your families have done when the kiddos come back!

December 10-14

Hello, Families!Thank you for signing your child's agenda, and encouraging your child to read at home every day.

December Events

• December 10-14 - Book Fair Week
• December 13 - International Night, 6:00-8:00 p.m.
• December 19 - Winter Parties/ Students Last Day
• December 21-January 4 - Winter Break/No School for Students and Staff

Book Fair-

This week there is library book fair. The kids will all get to preview the book fair on Monday and we will have a library time later in the week. Kids who bring money can go to the book fair on the day they bring it, and we will also have a specific shopping day where our whole class has a 30 minute shopping time together.

Reading:

Students will review literary nonfiction versus fiction texts. We will read paired texts (fiction text and nonfiction text about a similar topic), and discuss the differences and similarities between the two. We will focus on main idea, and we will practice picking out important parts when reading fiction or nonfiction. Students will have a DCA this Friday. We will also continue with book clubs this week.

Spelling:

No new spelling list until after the break.

Writing:

Students will have a DCA on Thursday. Students will be writing an expository piece this week. They will get to choose  which prompt they want from a list of four prompts. Students will create a boxes and bullets organizer before they start drafting their piece. Here are the prompt choices:

Everyone has days that they will always remember as being very special. Think about a special day that you have had. Write an essay telling why it was so special.

We are learning all the time. Some of our learning takes place in school and some outside of school. Write about something you have learned recently and how it has affected you.

Rules are important. What are the most important rules at your school and why are they important?

We all have a place where we can imagine or go where we want to be alone and relax. Think of your favorite place. Now write an essay explaining why this place is your favorite.

Social Studies:

This week, we will be studying the time after the Revolution when Texas was its own country called The Republic of Texas. We will talk about the success and challenges this new Republic faced, and students will identify the important leaders during this time.

Ungraded Writing Prompts-

These are great practice if your child is struggling with getting ideas onto paper. Practingin just getting started and writing something out is helpful.

1. If you could design a bike, what would it be like? You may draw a picture.
2. What is your favorite movie and why?
3. If you were faced with an obstacle, how would you overcome it?
4. What is your favorite subject and why?
5. What is your least favorite restaurant and why?
6. If you found $100 on the floor, what would you do with it?
7. Write a poem about a very important moment in your life.
8. What is your favorite animal and why?
9. Write a poem about an animal.
10. Would you rather live in the city or in the country?
11. If you saw that someone was left out, what would you do?
12. If you could design a robot, what would it do?

December 3rd -7th

Requests- Classroom Needs-
We have had a lot of sickness going around in our classroom.  I have been encouraging our class to wash hands, not share food or drinks, use hand sanitizer and tell me if they don't feel well.  Hopefully we can all stay healthy from now until the holidays!  Because of all the cleaning I have been doing in our room with Clorox wipes at the end of the day after kids leave and all the hand sanitizer use we are doing we are running low on both.  We could really use some more Clorox wipes and hand sanitizer.  The Clorox Wipes will never be used by students and the hand sanitizer that is best is the alcohol free if you can find it.
Also, if your child is out sick please email me to let me know that they are out and what they have so I can clean up their area if needed.  If they are out with an ear infection I don't worry as much with wiping their area down as when kids are out with flu, strep or stomach bugs.  I'm working hard to keep everyone healthy and appreciate your help.  By the way, I will not tell others that your child is sick or what they have.  That is private protected information.
If your child is sick please do not return them to school until 24 hours of being free of fever, diarrhea and vomiting. That helps the rest of us stay healthy and keeps us from just passing sickness around and reinfecting each other.
Thank you guys so much for all the help and support with this.  I know the trials of a sick kid and Stella and I got hit this week, too. Hopefully working together we can minimize our illness.

Reminders-

Thursday, December 13- International Festival at 6:00pm Tuesday, 

December 18- 6:30pm  Winter Choir Performance

Wednesday, December 19th- 1:30 Winter Class Party Thursday,

 December 20th- January 7th Winter Break  Tuesday, 

January 8th- First Day Back

Reading-
We will continue with our reading partner books and responding in our reading response journals.  We will work on some Time For Kid's magazine and quizzes to support reading comprehension and responding to questions.
We will also be working on reading strategies of finding main idea, point of view in a story and asking questions as we read.  We will also be working on doing the middle of year reading assessment.

Writing-
We will finish writing our biographies and the edit revise them.  Then we plan to type them up and have them ready to share.  Hopefully we will get there by the end of the week.

Social Studies-
We will be moving into important battles of the Texas Revolution.  This is the exciting part of Texas history where we talk about the Alamo, Goliad and Runaway Scrape.

Spelling-
We will have a test at the end of this week.  Please remind you child to study.

Homework:
Dream Box is here!!!  Yay!  Your child worked today on doing the profile test to get them on a leveled area for them.  They should be able to use at home by next week.
Remind them to read about 20-30 minutes a night and study spelling.

Ungraded Writing Prompt Homework- I've seen some great practice coming in!

You get to trade places with someone for one day. Who would you choose? This person should be someone you know a lot about. Write about who you would trade places with. Give reasons with supporting details. Describe what you think your day would be like. Explain what you would do and how you think you would feel.

Some people prefer dogs while some like cats as their pets. Other people prefer birds, snakes, fish, sheep, goats, rabbits, pigs, horses or other animals as their pets. What do you think would be the perfect pet to have? Describe in your writing your ideas about a perfect pet. You may draw a picture to accompany your writing if you would like!

November 26-30th

School Holiday

November 19-23 is a holiday for the Thanksgiving holidays.
 We will not have school next week, and I hope you all enjoy
the time with your family.

Buddies
We met with our buddies today to share a Holiday story with them.
I read them the book "T'was the Night Before Thanksgiving."
My daughter and I got to meet the author last month and he shared
the story of how this book was published, so I shared that with the
class.
Then we made turkey cards for our buddies! It is so fun to see our big
kids be so caring to their little buddies.

Reminders

• International Night is coming December 13. We are looking for more volunteers to represent countries. So far we have Germany, Greece, Peru, Colombia, China, Philippines, Italy, India, Hungary, Japan and Korea. You can join a team or lead another country. We would love to have more countries represented. Contact arunalakshman@gmail.com for details!
• Yearbooks - You may purchase your child's 2018-2019 school yearbook online by clicking here. The school code is 13714419. Current pricing is $20 (softcover) $25 (hardcover). The price will increase on December 1st.
• Holiday Pictures - Students may take holiday pictures on November 27th. These are optional for families. Please see the form in this week's Tuesday folder.
• Science Fair - The Caraway Science Fair will be held on January 23, 2019. The registration timeline is November 5, 2018 – December 14, 2018. Register by clicking here.

Academics when we return

Reading-

We will be exploring the differences between biographies, 

fiction and narrative nonfiction this week. We will be looking

at text examples and comparing the features of each. 

Writing

We are going to be writing our own biographies about a person in Texas history that we have been researching.  This week we will be writing our hooks, thesis statements and our body paragraphs. 

Spelling

We will be getting new lists this week and testing in two weeks. 

Social Studies

We will be learning about why Texas broke away from Mexico to become its own country.  We will discuss the reasons for the revolution and go through the timeline of the revolution. 

Homework

Continue to remind your students to read nightly, work on spelling and math.  

Optional ungraded writing homework:

Write about what you did over the holiday break.

Write about the reasons we should have a holiday break. 

Write to convince the principal of why we should or 

should not have homework over a school break. 

November 12-16

Author Visit

We had a great visit with the author Donna Bowman.  

She talked about her book "Step Right Up."  She talked with us 

about being kind and se signed a kindness pledge together. 

Reminders:

• November 13 - 3rd Grade Program/PTA Meeting, 6:30-7:30 p.m.
• November 14- UIL Campus Meet
• November 16 - Adventure Dash Fun Run
• November 19-23 - Thanksgiving Break
• November 30 - Austin Jazz Workshop- We will have a different schedule

• Science Fair - The Caraway Science Fair will be held on January 23, 2019.
•  Registration timelines is November 5, 2018 – December 14, 2018. 

• Food Drive - We will host a food drive beginning November 1st - 12th for 

the Round Rock Area Serving Center. Barrels will be placed in the main
 hallways for canned and non-perishable food.

• International night is coming December 13. We are looking for more volunteers to represent countries. So far we have Germany, Greece, Peru, Colombia, China, Philippines, Italy, India, Hungary, Japan and Korea. You can join a team or lead another country. 

Reading
We have finished up poetry and will be starting biographies. 
We will talk about the features of a biography and the differences between
 a biography and an autobiography.  This week students will pick a figure in 
Texas History to learn about by reading their biography.

Writing
Students will be conducting research on the historical figure they have
 chosen to learn about.  We will discuss using the text features of the
 biographies and sequencing as well as finding important facts. This
 will later be used to write their biography over their historical figure. 

Spelling
This week we will review spelling lists that we have done before. 
This will be a time to review the rules we know.  At the end of the
 week we will have a quiz that uses some of the rules we have done before. 

Social Studies
We will be wrapping up colonizing Texas before moving into the 
Texas revolution after the break. On Thursday we will be taking a 
quiz over all that we have learned about the portion of Texas history 
from Mexican Independence from Spain up to the start of the Texas Revolution. 


Homework - 
Continue to encourage your child to read each night, practice math
 skills and spelling as needed.

Optional Homework- Writing

1. Finish this thought: If I was the principal of my school, I would…

2. What are you grateful for?

3. If you could be friends with anyone in the world, who would
you choose? Why?

November 5-9

Special thank you to our parent volunteers for the Capitol Trip!
Davanee's mom, Hazel's mom and Sanjith's dad, thank you all for helping make our
field trip possible and special!

Reminders:

November Events

• November 6 - Adventure Dash Kick-Off
• November 7 - Donna Bowman Author Visit, 3rd-5th
• November 9 - Skate Night @ Playland Skate Center
• November 13 - 3rd Grade Program/PTA Meeting, 6:30-7:30 p.m.
• November 16 - Adventure Dash Fun Run
• November 19-23 - Thanksgiving Break
• November 30th - 4th Grade Jazz workshop- We will have a different schedule this day!

Buddy Time-

We had a lot of fun meeting with our buddies to help them sort candy and fill in a graph. 

Reading-

This will be our last week in poetry. We will be talking about reading
strategies we can use with poetry to help us understand poems better.
We will be looking for the theme of poems we read, comparing poems and
using what we know about figurative language to help us analyze poems.

Writing-

We will continue to work on writing poems in our journals and publish final
pieces of poetry to turn in for a grade by the end of this week.

Social Studies-

We will be looking at how Texas was colonized during the era that Mexico
was its own country and Texas was part of Mexico. We will discuss historical
figures like Stephen F. Austin and arrival of the Old 300.

Spelling-

Practice words each night and try sorting them using the cards as well
as writing them and doing practice spelling tests. The spelling test will be on Friday.

Writing Homework:

Student choice! Choose 3.

• Who is your favorite athlete and why? What is your favorite sport?
• Write a haiku.
• Describe your Halloween costume.
• Create a poem about dreams like Langston Hughes.
• What do you like about your academy and why?
• Write a poem (free verse or rhyme).
• Write about your favorite day of the year.
• What grade would you teach and why?
• What did you do for Halloween?