October 1-5

Academies are underway and the Owl Gazette with additions by some of the students in our class has been published. Enjoy!

Owl Gazette - 1st Edition





Writing 
We will be finishing our expository writing and publishing this week. You child will be sharing by the end of the week. This week they will be editing and revising the drafts that they have so far. 

Reading/Social Studies 
We continue to work on nonfiction texts and text features.  This week we will be looking at finding main idea of nonfiction text. We will also begin looking at the first explorers of Texas. We will discuss the first explorers and look at nonfiction text describing their early explorations. 

Spelling
The students have been doing a great job of studying their spelling words and working on their spelling lists. Please encourage them to study at home by sorting them into the spelling pattern, writing them out and taking practice tests to prepare. 

Reminders:

October 1 – Life skills Recognition Ceremony (Perseverance)

Sept 29th – Caraway 40th Anniversary Celebration

Oct 11th– International Bike and Walk to School Day

Oct 9th– No school for students

Oct 10th– No school for students (Parent Teacher conferences- sign-up has been emailed)

Bike Rodeo
Caraway's 2018 Bike Rodeo, which only happens every other year, is scheduled for Saturday, October 6th, from 10am-12pm at the Caraway's parking lot (flagpole / Carlwood Drive side). There will be a raffle for a FREE bike from Empire BMX, FREE helmets to the first 50 students, helmet fitting and bike tune-up stations, and a bike course set-up to learn how to ride safely.  Watch a BMX bike stunt show and grab some food from Rosarito's Taco truck. We need parent volunteers to make this event happen, so please sign up here: https://goo.gl/XQprac. Hope to see you there!

Homework

Reading 20 minutes a night books of the student's choice.

Math IXL 10 minutes a night.  

Spelling 5-10 minutes a night as needed. 

Study for tests as needed. 

These times are flexible, but are a guide to what your child should be doing. 

Ungraded, practice homework prompts for this week:

1.Describe a time when you were brave. What happened?

2. Create a story using four (or more!) of the following words: candle, there, jogging, envelope, mask, microphone, ancient, they’re, fountain, zoo, truck, you’re, rose, circle, glare

3. Write about what you would do if you saw someone being bullied.

September 24-28

Bike Rodeo
Caraway's 2018 Bike Rodeo, which only happens every other year, is scheduled for Saturday, October 6th, from 10am-12pm at the Caraway's parking lot (flagpole / Carlwood Drive side). There will be a raffle for a FREE bike from Empire BMX, FREE helmets to the first 50 students, helmet fitting and bike tune-up stations, and a bike course set-up to learn how to ride safely.  Watch a BMX bike stunt show and grab some food from Rosarito's Taco truck. We need parent volunteers to make this event happen, so please sign up here: https://goo.gl/XQprac. Hope to see you there!

Writing 
We will continue to work on writing our expository papers.  This is our first expository and it will be about one of our favorite things. We have written our thesis statements and will be adding in our reasons and supporting evidence this week before wrapping up with a conclusion. 

Reading/Social Studies 
This week we will be looking at nonfiction text about the Native American Tribes we have been studying to cover our TEKS in both reading and social studies.  We will be getting information about the tribes as we use our nonfiction text reading strategies. 

Spelling
The students have been doing a great job of studying their spelling words and working on their spelling lists. Please encourage them to study at home by sorting them into the spelling pattern, writing them out and taking practice tests to prepare. 

Reminders:

Sept 24th – Life skills Recognition Ceremony (Problem Solving)

Sept 29th – Caraway 40th Anniversary Celebration

Oct 11th– International Bike and Walk to School Day

Oct 9th– No school for students

Oct 10th– No school for students (Parent Teacher conferences- sign-up will be emailed out Monday)

Homework

Reading 20 minutes a night books of the student's choice.

Math IXL 10 minutes a night.  

Spelling 5-10 minutes a night as needed. 

Study for tests as needed. 

These times are flexible, but are a guide to what your child should be doing. 

Ungraded, practice homework prompts for this week:

1. Who is your hero? What makes this person a hero to you?

2. What do you want to be when you grow up and why? If you have multiple things you might want to be, please write them down!

3. What does being kind mean to you? Have you ever been especially kind to someone? Has someone shown you kindness before?

September 17th-September 21st

Author Visit

Our Bluebonnet Author Visit with Donna Bowman, author of Texas Bluebonnet Award 18-19 book Step Right Up is coming up November 17th.

If you want to order books from her you must turn in the form by noon on Wednesday, September 19th.

Order Form : https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3xnCnGb-PBrVlR5S3VYZDUwQnppcnFxMHpWelF0aU03cjRN/view?usp=sharing

Academics Next Week:

Reading-

We will be starting nonfiction/expository texts.  We will be talking about text features and how to use them to help us understand a nonfiction story in greater depth.  You child will have some opportunities to work with nonfiction stories and explore with them in groups identifying nonfiction text features and how they help them comprehend the story. 

Writing-

We will be completing and sharing our stories.  Your child has been working hard for weeks on their first narrative piece.  We will also be giving them an opportunity to write a narrative small moment story completely on their own Tuesday showing us if they have internalized each step of the lessons they have so far been guided through. Then we will be moving into expository writing and will be talking about a thesis statement and using the organizational strategy of boxes and bullets. 

Spelling-

Keep encouraging your child to practice with their spelling words.  Their test is this coming Friday.  They should be working in their spelling journal and sorting their words to be more familiar with them. 

Social Studies-

We have wrapped up Texas Regions and are moving into Native Texan Tribes.  We will learn about some of the largest and most commonly known tribes who lived in Texas before any European explorers came to the area. We will start the unit with a short play about the Apache Tribe that students will be able to perform and then move into getting information on all the tribes. 

Homework-

Reading 20 minutes a night books of the student's choice.

Math IXL 10 minutes a night.  Spelling 5-10 minutes a night as needed. 

Study for tests as needed. 

These times are flexible, but are a guide to what your child should be doing. 

Option writing prompts- If you want your child to work on writing at home they can write to these optional prompts. It is not required, but it is good practice and I will review it with your child if you would like.  You can also choose to try a family write to encourage your child to write.  This is where you write while they write at the same time for 10 -15 minutes and then share with each other. You can also send both of these in to me if you would like. 

Writing Prompts This Week:
1. If you could have dinner with any person, alive or deceased, who would it be and why?
2. Which subject is your favorite in school and why?
3. If you could have any superpower, what would it be? 

Buddies-

Our class also got to meet with our buddy classes today!  It was wonderful to watch how caring and supportive your children were as they read with the younger classes.  They were fantastic role models. 

We are having a great start to the year! Thanks parents for all your support.  

Reminders:
September 17th              Life Skill Recognition Ceremony (Integrity)
September 21st               Academies Begin
 September 29th             Caraway 40th Anniversary
October 8-9, 2018         Columbus Day (No Students)
October 9, 2018            Parent-Teacher Conferences
October 11th                  International Bike and Walk to School Day
November 19-23, 2018   Thanksgiving Break


Here is the PE news letter!
https://sites.google.com/roundrockisd.org/kathycarawaype/pe-news

September 10-14

Academy Days!
Academies are starting soon, September 21st !  Your child will soon get to make their selection for fall Academies.  If you want to help there are two sign-ups below!  One is to volunteer and the other is to donate items.  

Parent Volunteer Signup for Caraway Academy

Caraway Academy Donations/Signup Genius

Reading
We will continue to work on reading workshop, to cover skills such as character traits, inference, and theme.  We will also start to set-up our book groups. By the end of the week our students will be into their groups. 

We will also visit the library to discuss Bluebonnet Books this year.  The entire grade will be going together on Monday at 10:40.  
Writing
We will continue to work on personal narratives this week.  We will work on strong endings to our stories and then on editing and drafting.  If we have time we will go into our final copies.  

Spelling
Students should be practicing nightly.  Your child's first graded spelling test will go home in Tuesday folders.  If you see that they did a great job, then perfect! Keep up the good work.  If you see they had difficulty then you may want to work with them on increasing their practice time.  

The second list will come home on Monday and they will have two weeks to practice.  They should be working on their words as needed 5-10 minutes a night. 

Social Studies
We have finished up our regions unit and the booklet they have worked on for two weeks and their test over regions.  We will be focusing on Celebrate Freedom Week.  We will be taking a look at American Independence and Freedoms this week. 

Reminders

Our PE days are Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Please be sure that your child wears clothes toed shoes on these days. 

Agendas need to be checked and signed nightly.  If your child does not have it filled all the way in please ask them about their focus during this time.  

Tuesday Folders go home every Tuesday full of work and need to be returned empty the next day. 

We won't have a set library day, but your child can do independent checkout as needed.  They should be finishing books and checking out new ones as they need to this year. We will go to the library for checkout days, but these are not the only days your child can go. 

Homework

Reading 20 minutes a night books of the students choice.

Math IXL 10 minutes a night.  Spelling 5-10 minutes a night as needed. 

Study for tests as needed. 

These times are flexible, but are a guide to what your child should be doing. 

Visit Mrs. Marshall's Blog for Math and Science 

https://sites.google.com/a/roundrockisd.org/mrs-marshall-s-4th-grade-class-website/