17-18 Week 21

Another action-packed week: Houston Grand Opera, a Cardboard Arcade, Digital Learning Day, Free Build Friday, Go Texan Day, and PBL presentations!

As part of our Arts Access Initiative programming we had Houston Grand Opera’s Storybook Opera here for nine amazing performances! Have a peek at this incredible program HERE

Everyone continues to make progress in their Code.org courses, and we are celebrating more “graduations” all the time! 1^st grade Monarch Heroes from Ms. Brown’s class had their first visit to the STEM lab. They made chromatography butterflies, got a Code.org account, and worked in the building centers. 2^nd grade learned about magnetism and physically demonstrated attraction, repulsion, magnetic fields, and polarity. 4^th and 5^th grade researched constellations and then made mini planetariums. They studied various types of circuits with the Snap Circuits kits, and then made their own circuits with copper tape and paperclips to illuminate their planetariums.

For Digital Learning Day everyone 2-5 self-selected their digital learning platform and created a choice project. Several students were excited to explore the Code.org App Lab, Play Lab, and Artist Studio. The Hour of Code activities were very popular as well! Other chose to create projects in Scratch or to make their own courses and mats for OZOBOTS, Bee Bots, or Dash robots.

Free Build Friday was Go Texan Day and apparently boots and hats inspire our best creativity and collaboration! 4^th grade hosted Ms. Brown’s class to their fantastic Cardboard Arcade and 5^th grade presented their human body system PBL research and products.

I can’t wait to see next week’s achievements!

17-18 Week 20

Another big week of Fine Arts, academic excellence, campus-wide celebration, and STEM / STEAM achievement!  Click HERE for scenes from Express Children’s Theater’s wonderful Freedom Train performance.

Click HERE to read about our second No Place For Hate event

Click HERE for a video overview of our No Place For Hate event

Click HERE for an album from our fantastic Family Math & Science Health Fitness Fair

Click HERE to see cast 1 of Ms. Massey's 2nd grade play Sam's Heart

Click HERE to see cast 2 of Ms. Massey's 2nd grade play Sam's Heart

Click HERE to see scenes from the Coding Club at Lyons annual Coding Competicion

All classes worked hard at their Code.org courses and we celebrated several graduations this week!

1^st grade Monarch Heroes made chromatography and symmetry butterflies combining art with math and science. Ms. Massey’s 2^nd grade made a return visit to the lab to tape their G/T Expo play “Sam’s Heart”. 3rd grade Code.org grads started work in Scratch, and 4^th and 5^th grade designed and constructed fantastic cardboard arcade games. The week wrapped up with a Free Build Friday and arcade play day!

17 -18 Week 19

This was an outstanding week of STEM lab and academic achievement at Piney Point - our 3^rd-5^th grade Name That Book team competed at M. C. Williams Middle School. Piney Point LOVES Name That Book! Every year we are introduced to fantastic new authors and new titles from old favorites.

Click HERE to see our 3-5 Name That Book team and see student reviews of their favorites from this year’s book list.

PPES STEM Lab 17-18 week 19 from Boyce Teacher on Vimeo.
Everyone K-5 made tremendous progress in the Code.org courses this week. We are starting to see a lot of graduates from the 2^nd and 3^rd grade course!

1^st Monarch Heroes made chromatography butterflies and talked about our ambassador butterflies’ return from Mexico, 3^rd grade created pop-up card Valentines for their STEM favorites, and 4^th and 5^th created a wonderful set of #CardboardChallenge arcade games. K-3 enjoyed a Free Build Friday and 4^th and 5^th were excited to host Ms. Flores’ 1^st grade and Ms. Bell’s Kindergarten to their arcades.

We have a big event planned for our second No Place For Hate activity and a whole new crop of classes due in the STEM lab for Units 3’s activities next week – check back and see what we make!

17-18 Week 18

Week 18 1/29

We had a fantastic week! Students made wonderful progress with all kinds of projects: plays, pop-up cards, interactive health displays, and of course, cardboard arcade!

See scenes from:

the district Spelling Bee HERE

Alley Theatre’s Oskar vs. Thingamabob HERE

Elementary UIL district meet #3 HERE

Everyone K-5 worked in their Code.org courses; we celebrated Adonay finishing Course C!

2^nd grade is hard at work on their G/T Expo projects for Family Math and Science Health Fitness Fair. They have been researching the effect of exercise on the heart. They learned to measure their pulse and collected data on their resting pulse rates and then measured again after a variety of exercises. Come to the Health Fair to see their data and discover what they learned! They also decided to write a play to show how the circulatory system works. The STEM / STEAM lab has been a hive of set and costume production, mini play writing workshops, and rehearsals!

3^rd grade made pop-up Valentines for their favorites from STEM lab – there is a lot of love for LEGO, Minecraft, Code.org, and Scratch in this class!

4^th and 5^th grade produced a very creative set of cardboard arcade games this week! They invited Ms. Colmenero and Ms. Caro’s Kindergarten classes to come play and we all had a wonderful time! I can’t wait to see what next week will bring!