2019-20 STEAM Lab week 15

Two days of testing, our 6^th annual Hour of Code event, and then back to the STEAM Lab! Thursday and Friday didn’t give us much time, but students dove right in and started creating.

It is very important to me that we identify the unique needs of each of our 1200+ students at Piney Point so we can make sure they receive the appropriate supports, but I am glad to be done with the G/T screening for this year!

Kinder and 1^st enjoyed a “snow day” and a Free Build day. They learned about the water cycle and snowflakes, then created their own blizzard with coffee filters and scissors.

2^nd – 5^th all learned about the unique properties of snowflakes with BrainPOP and Wonderopolis, but then went in different directions for the products. 2^nd & 4^th created personal wintry variations to the Scratch “Catch Game” and then made Makey Makey controllers to play their games. 2nd grade also filmed clips from the Underwater Circus project with Ringmasters Rachel Carson, Sylvia Earle, Jacques Cousteau, and Eugenie Clark.

3^rd grade went with musical snowflakes! They started with a game in mind, but then had their interactive snowflakes make sounds instead.

5^th grade created digital instruments that they played with Makey Makey boards. 

Both 3^rd and 5^th opted for a Free Build Friday featuring K’Nex and LEGO.

Wednesday we had our annual (6 hours of) Hour of Code! It was a smashing success thanks to the efforts of the whole ancillary team and Ms. Belmarez, but especially due to Mr. Contreras! Every year he collects the 60+ devices, chargers, and peripherals needed, tests them all and sets everything up in the gym and library as well as checking that everything is operational in both labs.

Next week will be a short one again, but I am sure that we will fill our 3 days with awesome learning adventures and creativity!

2019-20 STEAM Lab week 14

Another week of testing, but relieved by some really fantastic Arts Integration experiences and opportunities for students to showcase their learning!

Monday and Tuesday brought our marvelous arts partner, Da Camera, to 5^th grade for the always engaging “Friendly Debate”! Students were presented with a wealth of facts and opinions about the clarinet and the bass from some (perhaps not wholly unbiased!) experts. They looked, listened, took notes, and the wrote up their own persuasive pieces advocating for their choice of best instrument!

Tuesday morning was our first G/T Expo for 2019-20! Students from all our G/T classes 1^st-5^th presented their first semester research products. There was a wonderful range of subject matter and projects on display!

1^st graders from Ms. Montoya and Ms. Thormodsgaard took us on a trip to the zoo – each child was the zookeeper for an animal of their own choice and had through research, art, map making, and writing created a mini-book of all they had learned. They shared their animal’s physical characteristics, life cycle, diet, and habitat.

Ms. Thompson’s 2^nd graders treated us to an underwater circus! Led by ring-masters Sylvia Earle, Jacques Cousteau, and Rachel Carson we saw a wide array of sea-life in the ring and learned facts about their specific marine habitat, role in the food chain, and more! Their play was very popular, and everyone was impressed with the paintings they had done of their creatures.

Ms. Lugo and Ms. Mosquera’s 2^nd graders had drawn on their past history as Monarch Heroes and branched out to research other local butterflies! They created research logs with facts about nectar and host plants for their species, maps of their range, and art work to accurately represent the physical appearance of their butterfly. Each student chose either an interactive Scratch project, a green-screen mini-documentary, or a PowerPoint presentation to share their work.

Ms. Ballentine’s 3^rd graders researched inventors and wrote either a mini biography and bound it as a book, created a PowerPoint presentation, or made a model of their inventor from recycled materials to share their research.

Mr. Briceno and Ms. Mallona’s 3^rd graders collaborated on a group project about properties of matter. They had done a good bit of research on the various types of attributes that describe object and created a mystery box for visitors to explore and try to determine what was inside based purely on tactile observations!

Ms. Alonzo and Ms. Lee’s 4^th graders extended their recent class examination of poetry, poetic devices, and personal expression. They created personal poetry anthologies and treated visitors to their tables to readings of their work with explanations about the devices and styles they used.

Ms. Alanis and Ms. Martinez’s 4^th grade G/T students did biography projects, researching their individual subject sand creating models of their subjects.

Ms. Mulry and Ms. Limon’s 5^th graders selected any topic of personal interest and created a presentation to share their learning on that topic. These presentations were a big hit! They covered subjects as diverse as black holes and chocolate, jaguars and coffee!

Tuesday afternoon we held not one, but TWO spelling bees!

Our first ever Junior Bee was a success!

After that we held our campus official bee, except our spellers were too good and we ran out of time to finish! We had to come back Wednesday afternoon for a couple more rounds!

Thursday saw Kindergarten at The Hobby Center for another of their Discovery Series performances.

Students (and teachers!) enjoyed a wonderful performance of Peter and the Wolf. Our teachers are strong advocates for the importance of arts experiences in the development of the whole child. We are so grateful for the support we receive from Houston’s incredible arts community to help us make these opportunities available to our students!

Testing is almost over! Next week we hold our 6^th annual Hour of Code!

2019-20 STEAM Lab week 13

Well, 13 was a bit unlucky for me, as I didn't spend even a single minute in the STEAM Lab! It is time for our annual G/T screening, and I have been testing children all week. Great things still happened!

DaCamera was on campus to work with 2nd and 4th grades, we celebrated our Honor Roll and Elite Scholars, family and friends were welcomed for a special Thanksgiving luncheon, and Brighter Bites had 2 big distribution events.

Testing will continue next week, but there will brief breaks for Da Camera in 5th grade, our first GT Expo of the year, Spelling Bee, and our very first Junior Spelling Bee!

While I am not all that excited about a week of test administration, I am deeply grateful to be part of such a generous, richly diverse, energetic, and eclectic learning community! It is a sincere joy to be connected to so many amazing organizations that bring extraordinary opportunities to our campus.

This year I am especially thankful for:

Arts Connect and our amazing arts partners: the Houston Ballet, Da Camera, Houston Grand Opera, the Alley Theatre, Main Street Theater, Mercury the Orchestra, and the Hobby Center Discovery Series
Our Green School programs: Eco-Schools USA for the inspiration for our Litter Less Ambassadors, Monarch Heroes, Recycling Team, Water Wardens, and Panther Power Patrol, Keep Houston Beautiful's recognition of our student programs via the Mayor's Proud Partner awards, and Trees for Houston.
Healthy Living Partners: Common Threads, Marathon Kids, Fuel Up to Play 60, Backpack Buddies, and Brighter Bites.
Community partners: our good angels from Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church and our amazing PTO and parent volunteers who support us in myriad ways and are always willing to lend a hand wherever needed.
My digital PLN: The remarkable generosity and unbridled creativity of the online #EduMaker / #ElemMaker communities has been such a gift! I am so grateful for the Scratch, Makey Makey, Raspberry Pi, NatGeo, Fund For Teachers, Wonderopolis, and BrainPOP communities!
My Piney Point colleagues: I am so very, very thankful to all the teachers who support and participate in all the projects and programming! Without my ancillary cohort, UIL volunteers, Name That Book classes, Spelling Bee judges and classroom sponsors, Green Teacher Leaders, No Place For Hate coalition, G/T teaching team, and every single classroom teacher, teaching aide, administrative assistant, and administrator none of the extraordinary work our children do would have a showcase. Their remarkable gifts and burgeoning talents would be unremarked and unsupported. I appreciate all that you do every day to reach every child. I am very appreciative of the unstinting support of our principal, Ms. Swaby. She always finds a way to provide material and personnel support for the new programs and opportunities we bring to her attention - whether it is drones, Ballet Folklorico, or a 4th grade golf team, she is eager to make sure our children have a chance to participate.

Thank you all!

I hope everyone has a restful Thanksgiving break!

2019-20 STEAM Lab week 12

An extra-long post for an extra amazing week!

We started the week off with celebrations of our outstanding Elementary UIL Team! See detailed results HERE

They performed beautifully at Welch Middle School on Saturday! I gathered our writing medalists to share their experience with the Admin Team at their Monday Meeting.

Monday was also Veterans Day so we spent the day learning about the holiday with BrainPOP, Wonderopolis, and Britannica Kids. We learned about the symbolism of the poppy and so all classes Kinder-5^th created their own version of Van Gogh’s Poppies and Butterflies and worked together to construct a large scale collaborative collage of the same painting.

We also wrapped up this year’s Bebras Challenge in 3^rd-5^th grade! All of this meant a late start to the scheduled STEAM lab unit, but the students were up to the task. They swiftly absorbed their background information on Van Gogh (K-5) and electric circuits (3-5) via BrainPOP, Brain POP Jr., and Wonderopolis then got straight to work, coding in Code.org, experimenting with circuits with the breadboard and LED kits, Snap Circuits, and Little Bits. They investigated the art of Van Gogh and used his masterpieces as inspiration for their own impressionist works in the still life and sketching stations.

Thursday was coding only as I was off campus with several Panther Planet Protectors and their sponsors to accept their Mayor’s Proud Partner Awards from Keep Houston Beautiful. 

Our Monarch Heroes and our Recycling Heroes were recognized for their outstanding efforts to improve and beautify our city. Ms. Thormodsgaard, Ms. James, PTO President, Mr. Jose Bustos, and Ms. Leal – Monarch Hero Queen Emeritus! – were at the award ceremony at Hilton Americas Houston with us. Our Planet Protector representatives were happy to meet Mayor Sylvester Turner, 

open the ceremony with the Pledge of Allegiance, and receive the beautiful awards celebrating their hard work and achievements.

As if all this wasn’t enough, we had some spectacular arts experiences this week also! Our beloved DaCamera was at school in 4^th grade for their Deconstructing Spirituals Music Experience. Students and Teachers give Ms. Camille 5 stars for this fascinating program! 4^th grade G/T classes also had their session on figurative language with I Am Jam – this was very timely as Ms. Lee’s class has been working on a poetry project for our upcoming G/T Expo! Half of 2^nd grade had their awesome Recycled Orchestra Music Encounter! They will be each constructing their own cuica when I get back to the STEAM lab after G/T testing!

So much amazing definitely earned all grades Free Build Friday! 

It was a fantastical festival of creativity, cooperation, and construction! I love these days – they are loud and messy, but it is also six straight classes without a single complaint, argument, or problem that anyone wants me to solve! They are all 100% engaged working in pairs, groups, or solo, as they choose, seamlessly switching roles, giving and taking feedback, designing, building, reiterating, and revising without frustration! They only need me to get kits off the high shelves, be impressed with their creations, and tell them when it is time to clean up their work!

2019-20 STEAM Lab week 11

Students were hard at work on a variety of special events this week, so not much of our extra STEAM Lab projects was done. It was still a great week of learning!

It was the start of our Bebras Challenge and this year Ms. Roesch in the Computer Lab and Ms. Wheatley in the Digital Media Lab helped get all 22 of our 3^rd-5^th grade classes through the practice and challenge rounds!

About Bebras^®The Bebras^® Computing Challenge introduces computational thinking to students.It is organized in over 30 countries and designed to get students all over the world excited about computing.

K-2^nd have been very busy with their respective Eco-Schools USA campaigns! Kinder held another big cooperative campus clean-up. We are so proud of the hard work and dedication of our young Green Heroes! Monarch Heroes have earned over $600.00 through their Monarch Money drive and had visitors on campus Thursday to see their work and learn about their efforts to raise awareness and create new habitat for Monarch butterflies. Our 2^nd grade recycling team has been hard at work educating their peers and collecting the campus recycling bins every week.

In STEAM Lab K-2 made excellent progress in their Code.org courses.

Projects and Free Build fell by the wayside as every grade was out at least one day due to fabulous field trips and it was also short week due to early dismissal on Friday. Three days was just enough time to work on Bebras and get to the next level in Code.org!

5^th grade had a very special opportunity to attend a Behind the Scenes tour of Houston Ballet’s Center for Dance! They had a brief introduction to the company, a Ballet Talk about the Nutcracker, and a tour of the facility. They saw professional dancers rehearsing in the studio, working out in the gym, dance classes for the most promising of the next generation of dancers, and a peek inside the costume shop! We are so grateful to be an Arts Connect Creative Campus and especially appreciative of our wonderful Arts Partner, Houston Ballet!

Our Name that Book and UIL Team put in a good bit of practice as well! 4 members of the K-2 team have completed their first read-through of their list and are preparing to be library readers!

Our UIL team participated in their first meet of the year this Saturday at Welch Middle School. For the first time I was unable to go with them and am so grateful to Ms. Wheatley, Ms, McCord, Ms. Kindle and PTO president Mr. Bustos for managing the competition.We are so proud of our scholars!

Individual competitors placed in a number of contests (see our UIL page for details) and the team placed 6th overall out of 17 schools!

2019-20 STEAM Lab week 10

A fantastic week of student achievement!

We kicked off Monday with a reading by Name That Book team super-reader Nabaa for the Monday Admin Meeting. She chose her favorites from the poetry anthology, School People, by Lee Bennet Hopkins.

Next our Kindergarten Green Heroes combined forces and held a double clean-up! They went out during their Marathon Kids class time and again with their ancillary teachers. Great Job, Green Heroes!

K-5 made a bit of progress in their Code.org classes, but were very busy investigating the life and work of Vincent Van Gogh via Wonderopolis, Britannica Kids, and BrainPOP Jr. They visited the OSMO Masterpiece, sketching, still life and collaborative collage stations to explore their own ideas inspired by his work. 

3^rd through 5^th grade also learned about electric circuits – getting a little background from BrainPOP and Wonderopolis before exploring with the breadboards, jumper wire, batteries and LEDs, Little Bits, and Snap Circuits.

Free Build Friday featured OSMO Numbers, Words, Tangrams, and Masterpiece, LEGO Creative Builder, Early Simple Machines, Little Bits, and Snap Circuits. They apparently really loved the work stations this week and wanted another turn!

Friday saw the completion of Ms. Brown’s and Ms. Mallona’s collaborative collages – both of these class picked Almond Blossoms as their source work.  They did a fantastic job!

2019-20 STEAM Lab week 9

Another week full of arts, special events, and student learning!

All grade levels started the Van Gogh unit this week; in a fun coincidence, the ART Lab is doing collaborative collage too with Mr. Huerta! Students explored the work and life of Vincent Van Gogh via Wonderopolis, BrainPOP Jr, and Britannica Kids.

We used these same research sources for 4^th and 5^th grades’ background work on electrical circuits. They put their new concepts to the test with the breadboards and LEDS, Snap Circuits, and Little Bits.

We continued work in Code.org, exploring more complex idea such as loops in Kinder – 2^nd, and nested loops and conditional statements in 3^rd-5^th grade.

The Name That Book teams are making great progress with their book lists – in fact we have a 1st grade student who has completed her first read-through of the entire list!

A big week for Arts Ed and Arts integration as the entire Kindergarten and 1st grade teams atended Musiqa at the Hobby Center and Arts Partner DaCamera was on campus for our very first Music Encounters of the year! They worked with our 3rd grade G/T classes on a special math and music problem solving activity called "Hiring the Band". They had a fantastic time applying their academic skills to an authentic and musical situation - also saxophone serenades! 

As a campus we had lots of special events and celebrations! Both our Eco-Schools USA Monarch Heroes and our Recycling Team were awarded Mayor’s Proud Partner status and will be recognized at the annual Keep Houston Beautiful celebration in November! We are so very proud of our student leaders. 

On Saturday the PTO hosted a fantastic Fall Festival with special guests from Houston Rodeo Agriculture Education Outreach committee and so many of our amazing community partners from Common Threads and Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church. The festival was also the annual kickoff celebration for Marathon Kids!

2019-20 STEAM Lab week 8

Last week of the first rotation!

The final set of K-4^th grade classes came to the lab and were introduced to Code.org, Wonderopolis, and the science shadow theater. The second group of 5^th graders worked through the stations and challenges for the Illuminated Art unit. This group chose Van Gogh’s Café Terrace at Night for their collaborative collage project. They had a lot of success with the sketching, circuit building, Snap Circuits, and Little Bits station activities.

Due to the half day schedule disruptions we had Free Build Thursday!

Eco-Schools USA:

Green Heroes hosted a big, group campus clean-up on Monday with 6 classes participating. They did a fantastic job and collected 4 large bags of trash! Monarch Heroes launched their Monarch Money drive! They decorated envelopes to go home with their funds solicitation and the envelopes are already starting to come back! Thank you to everyone supporting their projects! Our 2^nd grade Recycling Team continues to work hard every week collecting the bins and taking them out every week. They are excited to start the “education” phase of their project next week!

No Place For Hate:

Our student No Place For hate coalition met to do final prep for our first campus-wide event, “You Belong Here”. They collaborated with Ms. Dale, our campus expert on restorative circles, to create the classroom pre- & post- event discussion materials. We practiced leading the sessions and then they distributed the schedules and prompts to the classes. Thursday morning, we reconvened across from the cafeteria with 200 puzzles pieces, the heart base, and two dozen bottles of glue!

It was a fantastic event! Students loved watching the heart take shape as each member of our community added their piece to the picture. The message the students wanted to share with this event was that every single piece is needed to make a complete picture. Each piece is unique, but a part of the whole. The pieces don’t interlock because you don’t need to make yourself “fit in” to be part of the picture. Everyone placed their piece exactly where they wanted it to be and it all came together beautifully!

Arts Connect Creative Campus:

We had a couple of fantastic arts partner events this week! Houston Grand Opera’s Opera to Go was on campus Friday to perform Strega Nona for 4^th grade and the other half of 5^th grade. Again, a fantastic show and the students loved it! 

Mr. Paul from Houston Ballet was back Friday as well, this time to present a Ballet Talk to half of 4^th grade! The students learned about the key elements of ballet, examined gorgeous costumes up close, and were given a behind the scenes look at Cinderella.

3rd grade finished up our thank you card for Houston Ballet's Studio Series, and I was able to drop that off at the Center for Dance Friday afternoon as well!

2019-20 STEAM Lab week 7

Another short, but sweet week!

We were off Wednesday for Fall Holiday and I was out Thursday to accompany 3^rd grade to the Houston Ballet Studio Series and then attend a couple of meetings, but the students accomplished great things during our three days together!

STEAM lab welcomed a new set of K-4^th grade classes this week and introduced them to their new Code.org classes, Wonderopolis, and the class expectations and procedures. They all made great strides in Peer Programming and collaborative problem solving. Ms, Tran has several groups who are almost 1/2 way through the course already! Such fine work earned everyone a Free Build Friday!

5th grade started a new rotation and really embraced the new project, Illuminated Art. They selected Van Gogh and did some introductory reading on Wonderopolis.  They cycled through the collage and sketching stations every day in addition to work in their Code.org course. Their Free Build Friday was all about circuits – they watched the BrainPOP video, build circuits with breadboards to light up LEDs, worked with Snap Circuits and Little Bits to create their own circuit contraptions. Finally, they created a circuit to light up the church tower.

Arts Partners: 3^rd grade had their field trip to the Houston Ballet Center for Dance to attend the Studio Series performance. This year’s program was a celebration of Houston Ballet's 50^th anniversary.

 It was a beautiful retrospective the history of Houston intertwined with the history of the company. Students saw excepts from ballet highlights across all 50 of those years. It was a fantastic show! WE wrapped up by singing Happy Birthday to the ballet! We are so delighted to be an Arts Connect Creative Campus! 

Eco-Schools USA: Weather got in the way of Ms. Tran’s Green Heroes earning their capes, but they will hopefully be outside next week! Monarch Heroes had a HUGE week! They prepped their ambassador butterflies for the Symbolic Migration to Mexico and designated class artists created gorgeous folders to hold the butterflies and class fact sheets. 

They also decorated 1250 envelopes for the Monarch Money campaign this year! 

The Recycling Team continued their work after a schedule change due to a new city recycling pick-up day. They are already planning their next steps - the reused material poster campaign and the morning announcement educational videos.

Our Healthy Living pathway has a new partner this year in Brighter Bites. This awesome organization brings engaging lesson about nutrition into the classrooms and for 8 weeks in the fall and 8 more in the spring sends bags full of fresh fruit and vegetables with recipes home to our families. Our teachers love the program and the entire Piney Point community benefits from healthier eating!

Our students do such fantastic work - I can’t wait to see what next week holds!

2019-20 STEAM Lab week 6

So much amazing happened at Piney Point this week!

I kicked off the week with the first meeting of the new Name That Book Teams,

followed 30 minute later by Ms. Ballentine’s 3^rd graders presenting their work with Houston Ballet Master Teacher, Mr. Paul in the Dance to Learn program to the administration team.

Both groups did an amazing job!

Another set of classes got started on their new @code.org courses, were introduced to Wonderopolis, and explored the maker materials.

Houston Grand Opera’s Storybook Opera was on campus for four days presenting to all 28 of our PK-2^nd grade classes. They LOVED the performances of The Dog Who Sang at The Opera! We are so grateful to be an Arts Connect campus and have such incredible Arts Partners!

Speaking of incredible Arts Partners, Thursday was Ms. Ballentine’s 3^rd graders last session of Dance to Learn and they presented their science ballets on the outdoor stage. They created their own choreography (under Mr. Paul’s supervision!) to explain magnetism, polarization, attraction, repulsion, and other concepts related to forces. Again, we are extremely grateful for our partnership with Houston Ballet and treasure these opportunities to let our students learn from their artists.

Our Eco-Schools USA heroes were busy as well! Ms. Caro’s Green Heroes did a campus clean-up, Ms. Pham’s Monarch Heroes finished their wings, all 8 Monarch Hero classes made their ambassador butterflies and class folders for the Symbolic Migration to Mexico, the Recycling Team was out collecting, and Ms. Ballentine’s Water Wardens had new plants to tend to thanks to a generous donation from Joshua’s Native Plants!

Plant donation from Joshua's Native Plants collected by Ms. Ballentine (cat not included!)

We wrapped up with Free Build Friday!

2019-20 STEAM Lab week 5

A lot of great work was accomplished in spite of yet another shortened week!

The lab hosted: Ms. Nesmith’s Kindergarten, Ms. Flores’ 1^st grade, Mr. Arzola’s 2^nd grade, Ms. Ballentine’s 3^rd grade, Ms. McCord’s 4^th grade, and Ms. Mulry’s 5^th grade this week.

Everyone was introduced to their new @code.org course and the lab procedures. K-2 got settled into their Eco-Schools roles, and 3^rd-5^th got acquainted with Wonderopolis and Classroom Q. Everyone worked on shadow stories – 3^rd-5^th researched self-selected science topics in BrainPOP to create their own stories, while K-2 worked on a story retell.

Eco-Schools: Ms. Bell’s class earned their capes and joined Ms. Nesmith’s group outside Thursday for a campus clean-up. Ms. Flores, Ms. Brown, and Ms. Pineda’s classes passed the Monarch ID tests and earned their wings! Our 2^nd grade Recycling Team after being shut out by weather the last two weeks was finally able to get started!

Arts Partners: Houston Ballet completed week two of the Dance To Learn Residency with Ms. Ballentine’s 3^rd grade, and Houston Grand Opera brought Opera To Go’s fantastic production of Strega Nona for 3^rd grade and half of 5^th grade.

The half day Friday disrupted regular lab schedules, but we were able to have a little Free Build Friday!

2019-20 STEAM Lab week 4

A wild, weather impacted week, but students were incredibly productive with only three days to work!

Ms. Almanza, Ms. Montoya, Ms. Lugo, Mr. Torres, Ms. P. Guzman, and Ms. V. Martinez’s classes were in the STEAM Lab this week and impressed me with the speed at which they mastered all the procedures and jumped straight into making and learning!

Monday started off with a fantastic meeting of the No Place For Hate student coalition. 

The subcommittees presented their recommendations, and everyone voted on the campus-wide events, the climate survey questions, and the Resolution of Respect pledge signing and activities. They got straight to work after the meeting and the survey was created and the link shared to both computer labs, the pledges went out to all the classes, and the first set of morning announcement No Place For Hate Moments were filmed and aired!

Thirty minutes later I had a group of Ms. Hernandez’s Green Heroes in the main conference room to open the Monday administration meeting with a presentation of their theme song and explanation of their Eco-Schools USA mission. 

On my way to collect the presentation team from the Marathon Kids morning work-out, I ran into a lovely group of Ms. Colmenero’s Green Heroes who had picked up all the litter around the track as they logged their daily half mile run!

All this awesome occurred before 8:30 Monday morning!

Clearly, we were on track for an excellent week and it was, until Imelda apparently decided that we were having too much of a good thing. Students K-5 made outstanding progress in their Code.org courses, researched, wrote, and performed wonderful science shadow stories, fell in love with Wonderopolis, and created fantastical environments, creatures, and courses with Keva planks, LEGO, and OZOBOT. Monarch Heroes earned and made their wings, and all the Green Teams practiced their theme songs. 

All my classes did fantastic work and stayed engaged through threatening skies, deafening thunder, uncomfortably close lightning strikes, and rapidly rising waters. Thursday was challenging, but our school community definitely rose to the occasion!

This week also saw Houston Ballet on campus for our first Arts Partner residency of the year. Ms. Ballentine’s third grade will be exploring physical science concepts through movement with the marvelous Dance to Learn program. The class loves it and has already awarded instructor Mr. Paul rock-star status!

Friday’s closure was especially disappointing as 5^th grade was slated to visit the Houston Ballet’s beautiful Center for Dance for the Behind the Scenes program. We were privileged to take a group to this last year and it was an incredible experience! Houston Ballet is incredibly good to us and have already reached out to try to reschedule despite the program being fully booked! We love our Arts Partners!