Monday, October 19, 2015

Updates: Week 9

Thank you for taking the time to read our blog. There is a lot of important information in this post. As always, please let us know if you have any questions. 

Important Announcements
  • We will begin tutoring during the week of October 26th. Unfortunately, there may have been some miscommunication regarding our start date, so we apologize for any inconvenience. If you have not received information regarding your child being invited to tutoring, you may disregard this announcement. 
  • On Monday, October 19th, we will have our kick off assembly for our school-wide Diabetes Service Learning Project. The assembly will be at 8:30 am in the gym. As a reminder, we will use a Friday schedule on this day (and all assembly days). Therefore, we will have specials from 9:30-10:20. At the end of our service learning project, the kids will participate in a fun run on Friday, October 30th. Parents are invited to come and run with their kids. To learn more about our service learning project, you may visit 
    www2.jdrf.org/goto/towncenter. In addition, the learners should be coming home with fundraising envelopes this week, so be on the look out for them. 
  • We will have picture retakes on Tuesday, October 20th, first thing in the morning. Please let your son/daughter know if they will need to get his/her picture taken on this day. 
  • In addition to our school-wide service learning project, Kindergarten has a few service learning projects going on right now, and they need your help. Please see our previous post about donations you may be able to provide, including gently used shoes and blue jeans. 
  • Our 1st Spirit Rally will be Friday, October 23rd at 8:30 am in the gym. We ask that your child please wear his/her TCE spirit grade level t-shirt on this day. (Our fourth grade shirts are bright orange.) 
  • We will celebrate Red Ribbon Week during the week of October 26th. We invite our learners to support a healthy, drug-free lifestyle and participate in these dress up days at school. To see the dress-up themes for each day of the week, please see this link. We will discuss these days with our learners at school as well. 
  • Our annual Spring Creek BBQ Night will be Tuesday, November 3rd at Spring Creek BBQ on Round Grove Road in Lewisville. Join us as we have a fun night of eating with our TCE families and help fundraise for new resources for TCE. (Plus, as an added bonus, you will be served by TCE teachers and staff!)
Texan Town!
As a reminder, Texan Town takes place most Fridays from 7:50-8:40. (When we have a Spirit Rally, we do not have Texan Town.) The dates for Texan Town during the Fall Session are: October 2nd, 16th, & 30th, November 6th, 13th, & 20th, and December 4th & 11th. 

In addition, every Friday we have a modified "Texan Town" schedule. Therefore, on Fridays, we have Specials (Move & Groove) from 9:30-10:20 AM. Our lunch and recess times stay the same. 

Popcorn Money
One of our Texan Town clubs is Texan Treats. Ms. Seifert leads this club, and she and her learners work to pop and deliver popcorn to our Town Center Texans. Learners can purchase a subscription for $4.00.  It will cover the cost of popcorn for 8 weeks of Texan Town. Alternatively, learners can also purchase popcorn weekly for $.50 a bag. 

Ms. Seifert is in need of some helpers to help her pop the popcorn. If you would like to volunteer to sign up, please view this sign up sheet. Thank you in advance for your help! 

If your family is new to Town Center and you have any questions about Texan Town, please don't hesitate to ask. 



    Upcoming Dates
    • Monday, October 19th - Diabetes Service Learning Assembly
    • Tuesday, October 20th - Picture Retakes
    • Friday, October 23rd - Spirit Rally 
    • Monday, October 26th - Friday, October 30th - Red Ribbon Week
    • Friday, October 30th - Diabetes Fun Run
    • Tuesday, November 3rd - Spring Creek BBQ Night
    Character Education
    The citizenship quality for October is Responsibility. 

    Each week, Town Center focuses on one life principle, or guiding character quality. The life principles for each week are discussed on the morning announcements and will be posted on our agendas. 

    What are we learning?
    Math & Science

    In math, we are working on addition and subtraction with whole numbers. The learners will practice estimating and will consider when and why they estimate. We are also learning how to apply the correct problem-solving strategies to addition and subtraction problems in a variety of ways, including the standard algorithm. 


    In science, we will continue exploring the different types of energy, the effects force has on an object, and the relationship between gravity and distance.

    Language & Literacy

    In reading, we will begin our nonfiction unit. Throughout this unit, learners will think about three key essential questions: 

    • How do readers make meaning from facts, details, and evidence?
    • How does the organization of the text help readers understand the author’s message?
    • How do I use the information I learned to support my thinking?
    Throughout the unit, we will be reinforcing these enduring understandings:

    • Expository and nonfiction texts provide facts, details, and evidence.
    • What we read helps us make sense of the world.
    • Text features help the reader locate evidence to support understanding.

    In writing, we will begin a new unit that focuses on building strong sentences and using descriptive language to add depth to our ideas and meaning to our writing. 

    Social Studies

    In social studies, the learners will begin to learn about the early history of Texas and the lives of the Native Americans that lived here. Throughout this unit, learners will think about the following essential question: 

    • How do people adapt to where they live?


    In addition, we will be enforcing these enduring understandings throughout the unit: 

    • Where people live affects how they live.
    • Native Americans in Texas developed different ways of life based upon the geographic region in which they lived.

    This will be learners first opportunity to use our new online textbook, and we are excited to see how the learners like the curriculum. They will be able to access the text, listen to an audio version, and make notes using their iPads. 

    Thank you, again, for taking the time to read our blog. We are looking forward to another great week with our fourth graders! 

    Thursday, October 8, 2015

    Service Learning & Cafeteria Updates

    Kindergarten Service Learning
    Kindergarten is collecting gently used shoes for our shoe drive! We will be using these shoes in our first Engineering unit as well as donating them to various charities in our community.
    Kindergarten is also collecting any blue jeans that you are not using/wearing anymore! We are going to be doing our very first global service learning project this month. We will be helping to make closed toe shoes for children in Africa out of blue jeans. If you would like a little more information before we get started, please click on the link below! More information will be coming home as we get closer to starting this global service learning project!

    2nd Grade Texan Town Needs
    Parents, please consider sending any of your paper shopping bags to school with your child. Second grade will be using these for collecting the recycled papers during Texan Town. We would be happy to take any paper shopping bags, bags from the grocery store, etc.


    Cafeteria Details