2019-20 STEAM Lab week 20

Another fast-paced and jam-packed week of learning, making, and new experiences!

We had a super start to the week with a group from Ms. Brown’s 1^st grade class opening the Monday Administrator’s meeting with a presentation of their Monarch Migration Robo-Retell! They did such a great job that Mr. Huerta filmed them for broadcast on the morning announcements!

Monday also saw Da Camera back on campus for the second half of 3^rd grade’s Science of Sound Music Encounters.

Tuesday’s big event was a trip to the District Spelling Bee with our champion, Ginger. Her alternate, Bricelda and the Junior Bee champions came along as her personal support team. She performed splendidly! She made it down to the final 3 and went a few rounds with the eventual champions before being eliminated. Our congratulations to the champions who will represent HISD at the City-wide Spelling Bee.

Tuesday afternoon saw a fantastic session of our Digital Making club! 2nd/3rd grade are finishing their 1st Scratch projects while 4th/5th grade started work on their mBot mazes.

Also this week, our K-2 Name That Book team wrapped up their reviews for all 30 of this year’s titles! Their recommendations are airing on the morning announcements over the next six weeks. I will be posting them all to the Name That Book page by the end of the week.

In the lab it was a slightly hectic week as I was out Tuesday & Thursday and had to switch 3^rd-5^th grade classes on Wednesday to prep the G/T groups for their first Skype-a-Scientist chats! Still, lots of excellent work was accomplished.

Kinder learned Are You My Mother? and did a beautiful job on their story maps. They quickly got a hang of the Bee Bots and were conducting outstanding Robo-Retells in no time!

1^st grade also made quick work of their project. They loved the migration videos from Nat Geo Kids and were saddened to learn about the struggles to protect the overwintering grounds from the Journey North resources. Their maps were a delight and Ms. Montoya was very impressed with their Robo-Retells. 

This group made such amazing progress in Code.org that at total of 6 students graduated from Course B!

2^nd grade had their hands full as they worked on the research and met with me about product ideas for the next G/T Expo as well as their Code.org course AND making their Da Camera inspired re-purposed can cuicas!

Third grade – 5^th grade worked on their coding course and then researched science topics in BrainPOP and created Ozobot maps to retell their new science learning.

We closed out the week with our first (soon to be annual!) American Heart Association Kids Heart Challenge bike ride! It was a beautiful day and we had a great crowd of teachers, parents, and students out to enjoy it on their bikes, trikes, scooters, roller skates, and even a hoverboard!