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!

2019-20 STEAM Lab week 3

More wonderful student work! This week Ms. Allende, Ms. Dipersio, Ms. Mosquera, Ms. White, Mr. M. Torres, and Ms. E. Guzman’s classes were in the lab.

We kicked off Monday with a presentation of one of last week's super Science Shadow Stories for the administration meeting. then this week's students were introduced to the expectations and procedures, and  their new coding classes. K-2 love the addition of Flipgrid and 3rd-5th did a great job with their Wonderopolis Daily Wonder and using Classroom Q to request help.

Eco-Schools update: Ms. Allende’s Green Heroes were joined by Ms. Almanza and Ms. Caro’s classes for campus clean-up and cape making thanks to Ms. Roesch and Ms. Wheatley. Ms. Pham’s Monarch Heroes came to the lab to test for earning their wings and passed with flying colors (orange and black)! Ms. Dipersio’s Monarch Heroes got their wings finished and proudly wore them back to class on Friday. Our 2nd grade Recycling Team had their first collection day and did splendidly!

No Place For Hate: Our coalition had their first meeting and discussed the Resolution of Respect, distributed the pledge to every classroom and office, and created a schedule for the new No Place For Hate Moment of the Morning News. They were assigned creating the campus climate survey and choosing this year’s school-wide events. I am so excited about next week’s follow-up to see what they decide! Strella and Joshua have already filmed their first No Place for Hate Moments and they are already airing!


Wednesday I met with all the teachers to share the updates to G/T for this school year and some of my favorite classroom tools and strategies to promote higher-level thinking and authentic engagement for all students such as Wonderopolis, Flipgrid, and Scratch. I am so happy to see so much interest and look forward to their use in more Piney Point classrooms!

We finished up with an awesome Free Build Friday!

2019-20 STEAM Lab week 2

A short, but spectacular week! We lost a day for the Labor Day holiday, but students still managed to get all the work done and earn Free Build Friday too.

3 more classes of Green Heroes earned their capes! Congratulations to Ms. Hernandez, Ms. Nesmith, and Ms. Allende’s classes on the successful campus clean-up and new capes! Ms. Thormodsgaard’s Monarch Heroes earned their wings as well. The 2^nd grade recycling teams were assigned classrooms and went to meet them. Ms. Ballentine’s Water Wardens were initiated into their new job on Wednesday and donated Friday’s recess to their 1^st solo venture. Our Eco-Schools Heroes are loving their new jobs!

K-2 were introduced to their new Code.org classes, created and performed their Shadow Stories. 3-5 got settled into the lab procedures, started their new Code. Org courses, began the Wonderopolis Daily Wonder and write ups, and learned to use Classroom Q. 5^th grade made binary bracelets, 4^th grade turned in fantastic Science Shadow Stories after researching personally selected topics on BrainPOP. Their scripts and puppets were really impressive as were their performances! They shared their learning about the Big Bang, Black Holes, thunderstorms, the ocean ecosystem, and food chains. Bravo 4^th grade!

We ended the week with Free Build Friday – everyone had a blast building and exploring with Keva planks, LEGO, OZOBOTs, building blocks, the observation and classification stations and more.

STEAM Lab 2019-20 week 1

What an outstanding first week back! I am so glad I have Monday to recover from such a whirlwind of student creativity, problem solving, and just plain awesomeness!

I am bringing back several things I introduced in the lab last year that were successful such as the Daily Wonder via Wonderopolis, and Classroom Q for organization. I also picked up some new tools and ideas over the summer such as Flipgrid, Daniel Barash's Shadow Stories, and the documentation wall.

Code.org – all grades K-5 got started on their new levels. The updated 2019 courses are streamlined and  look good!
Wonderopolis - 3rd-5th start every class with the Daily Wonder. They read, watch, and explore the topic and then record their response. This is a great way to promote curiosity and investigation.
Flipgrid - K-2nd set their personal goals and then evaluated their performance for the week with this app. They loved it and I love the way it lets them express ideas that are beyond the scope of their writing skills (for the moment!).

The Shadow Stories were fantastic at all grade levels. K-2 did a great job with their shadow stories based on Leo Lionni’s Inch By Inch, Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and Rolf Myller’s How Big Is a Foot? 3^rd-5^th had some issues with adequate time for research due to internet outages,  but did a great job on their life cycle and food chain science stories.

Eco-Schools – Ms. Colmenero’s Kinder Green Heroes learned their song and earned their capes with their first clean-up, 1^st grade students from Ms. Lowery’s class started work on the Monarch Song and were introduced to several local species of butterflies. Ms. James’ 2^nd grade learned their song and had their recycling training.





We finished up with a fantastic Free Build Friday!