We will complete our bat caves this week. I think the students have really enjoyed learning about bats. Monday, November 2 I will hand out the review for our benchmark. Students will have 2 days, if needed, to complete the review. This time the review will be a grade. Wednesday, November 4 if the students study the review at home and have a parent sign it then they will receive 5 extra points on their test. Our benchmark will be Thursday, November 5 and if need they will have a chance to finish on Friday, November 6. Please encourage your child to read over the handout we received on Monarch Butterflies. There are 4 bonus questions on the benchmark straight from that handout.

Thank you parents for all your help.

This six weeks we are studing about ecosystems and how animals and plants interact within their ecosystem. On Thursday, October 22 Elizabeth Monroe from Longview will give a special presentation on Monarch Butterflies as they migrate to Mexico for the winter. The last week of October we will study bats and I will be showing a short clip of Mexican Free Tail bats emerging from their cave in Concan, Texas for their nightly feeding. The cave holds approximately 10 million bats and watching them emerge is an amazing sight. These bats feed on flying insects such as moths and mosquitos and help keep the larva off of the farmers' crops around Uvalde, Texas. These bats eat approximately 100 tons of food a night and weigh only 5 grams (the equivalent of 5 paper clips). In late October they migrate back to Mexico for the winter and return to their cave around April. Their guano is mined during the winter for the local farmers to use as fertilizer and during the Civil War it was heated and used for gunpowder.

I will send a review home during the first week of November for our benchmark which will be taken on Thursday, November 5. Remember that our benchmarks count as 3 grades.

We have all chosen the planet we want to research and most of us have begun our research. I am attaching a list of who chose what planet incase you would like to look up information with your child. Also I am attaching a copy of the instructions that go along with our research and a copy of the instructions for following the phases of the moon for the month of September. As always if you have any questions please contact me.