STEAM Lab 2018-19 Week 25

It was another fantastic week in the Piney Point STEAM lab!

Kinder worked cooperatively to make story maps for Jon Klassen’s I Want My Hat Back for the Bee Bots and then created algorithms to reenact the story.

1^st grade made an incredible start on their Earth Day mural in the library. So far, 6 of our 8 classes have worked on it and it is really coming along! Thank you again to Ms. Belmarez for sketching the outline of our winning design. They also made their mini-milk carton Monarch documentaries and shared some of their Odes to Monarchs inspired by their Da Camera Greek Odes Music Encounter. A couple more 1^st graders joined the ranks of Code.org graduates this week too!

The 2^nd grade Green Hero recycling team make cuicas from reused materials – cans saved from a trip to the landfill thanks to Ms. Telfah and her hardworking staff in our cafeteria!

3^rd grade started work on their Lost in Space interactive planetarium projects. They began writing programs to share their research on the planets from NatGeo Kids and NASA resources.

4^th grade completed and showcased their Zoo projects. They researched an endangered animal of their choice using NatGeo Kids and the San Diego Zoo resources, then created a model from reused and repurposed materials and wrote a Scratch program to share their learning. They connected their projects to a Makey Makey for an exhibition at the end of the week. Several early finishers made a start on some of the Earth Day projects.

5^th grade started work on their bookshelf projects. This is meant to be an ongoing project to collect their reading reflections, so it will develop with each trip to the library. They also started work on some of the Earth Day painting projects.

Da Camera was here for Music Encounters for 3^rd and to bring the Butterfly Ballet experience to our remaining 1^st grade Monarch Heroes! Our arts partners are the best!

Free Build Friday wrapped up our week with a celebration of the STEAM lab’s essential goals – active collaboration and effective communication in the service of design, making, and problem solving!

STEAM Lab 2018-19 Week 24

A week of amazing Arts Integration, student academic and creative excellence, and learning!

The lab was closed due to testing this week, so I loaded up a cart and took our STEAM activities on the road!

We started the week with Ms. Leal’s 1^st grade Eco-Schools USA Monarch Heroes sharing their Monarch Odes with musical accompaniment for the Monday Meeting. This is their independent application of the Da Camera Greek Odes Music Encounter they had just a couple of weeks ago. The K-2 Name That Books students recorded a couple more book reviews in the TV studio and Da Camera percussion artist Mr. Brady arrived for the 2^nd grade Recycled Orchestra Music Encounter – all of this before 9:00 a.m.!

Kinder and 1^st grade created mini milk carton film strip viewers. K turned our read-aloud, Jon Klassen’s I Want My Hat Back into their own mini movie and was introduced to Scratch Jr while 1^st grade summarized their Monarch Hero researches into a mini documentary! A few more 1^st graders graduated their Code.org course too!

2nd grade made their own cuicas – we asked our always supportive cafeteria manager, Ms. Telfah to save cans and then assembled the traditional Brazilian instrument with a nail, a skewer, and some tape! They learned about the instrument during their Da Camera Recycled Orchestra Music Encounter and were thrilled to make their own!

3^rd grade did some research on BrainPOP and learned to employ nested loops in Code.org while 4^th grade started work on their interactive zoo project.

Thursday our 3-5 Name That Book team had their contest – they have done a great job creating digital projects for their reading and also filming reviews for the morning announcements!

Friday, Da Camera brought the Butterfly Ballet Music Encounter to 4 of our Monarch Hero classrooms – the other 4 will have their turn next week. This experience is one of the highlights of their year-long project. We are so grateful to the incredible talented musicians that bring our curriculum alive through their music!

I can’t wait to see what next week’s groups make!