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!