Ancillary @ Home

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Happy Huerta/ Chavez Day

This was to be HISD's first year to recognize this day and I don't want to let it pass unmarked! These two icons of civil rights advocacy definitely deserve recognition. Dolores Huerta was raised to activism by extremely involved parents. She became motivated to greater community service by the struggles she witnessed as a teacher - she saw the impact of abusive, disenfranchising systems and policies of her students and their families and knew that things had to change. She is still fighting to bring justice to oppressed communities to this day!

STEM @ HOME

Welcome to our brave, new learning adventure! I hope all of you are keeping safe at home. We are all missing you and hoping to get back to school as soon as possible. In the meantime, we will all be creating lessons and content to share with you remotely.



I will be posting weekly ancillary activities on this page, the school website, Clever, and Ms. Wheatley and Ms. Roesch will be sharing from their Google Classroom and personal pages as well.

In addition to our activities, I will be sharing updates from the habitats, links to amazing at-home  learning opportunities from Nat Geo, NASA, LEGO, museums, zoos, and other organizations from all over the world in the left-hand side-bar.

Best wishes for your health and well-being!

2019-20 STEAM Lab week 26

A shortened week, but full of wonderful learning experiences!

Monday we gathered our UIL Team to congratulate everyone and give back their results. We are so Panther Proud of our scholars and performers!

STEAM lab was on the road this week to accommodate HMNS Bugs on Wheels. I love this program and so do all our students! I booked it last year and it was such a big hit, I hope to make it annual.

Monday was Monarchs for our Eco-Schools USA Monarch Heroes of course!

Tuesday was Decomposers for our Eco-Schools USA Recycling Team – they were excited to meet nature’s recycling team!

Wednesday was Pollinators for 3^rd grade:

Thursday was Arthropods for 4^th grade:

Friday was scheduled to be Arachnids for 5^th grade, but the cancellation will push that back after our return to school.

Kindergarten created their own definition and image of a Green Hero, had a bonus campus clean-up day and was able to produce their class profile video! 

Our Green Heroes were recognized by Don't Mess With Texas and received several boxes of special prizes! They got beautiful calendars, giant posters, and a clean-up bag with stickers and a mini book. Thank you so much for the gifts!

First grade reviewed all their Monarch learning for the year – incorporating new facts from their HMNS program! They then worked in teams to create their Monarch Movie, but unfortunately didn’t get to present their final project when school was cancelled. They also got acquainted with Scratch Jr!

Second, Third, and Fourth grade had their Scratch Intro, but then environmental projects took over! They donated a day to assisting the Monarch Heroes by relocating some of their beds and prepping them for Habitat Restoration Day, they prepped new beds in the Guacamole Garden, they bucket brigade watered all 50 of the Monarch Hero habitat beds and the vegetable gardens too! They also attended the HMNS Bugs On Wheels program for their grade level.

Thursday was Monarch Habitat Restoration Day! All eight classes came out to add new plants in place of ones that didn’t make it through the winter or were completely devoured by caterpillars in the fall!

In Digital Making Club 2^nd graders got acquainted with LEGO Dacta as an introduction before they start the Simple Machines and then the WeDo kits. The 3^rd grade put final touches on their interactive stories, and Krisha (who finished last week) started on LEGO WeDo. 4^th and 5^th graders started work with BirdBrain’s Hummingbird robotics kits. They started creating a simple – or in some cases, NOT so simple, design to attach the motors and lights and then program it to move, light up, or spin around in Scratch.

I was saddened to learn that school will not be in session until March 31^st, but obviously the safety of our children and their families is the top priority. I do wish I had an opportunity to say a proper goodbye to students and make sure I sent home activities and supplies. I look forward to seeing everyone back healthy and ready to make and learn again as soon as possible!

2019-20 STEAM Lab week 25

A great week, full of learning, making, and special events!

On Monday, K-2 classes from last week were back in the lab to wrap up their projects. We had wonderful Robo-Retells from K,

and 1^st ,

and second truly enjoyed their repurposed can cuicas!

Also Monday, we held a Black History themed Mardi Gras parade – it was a little late due to Friday’s closure, but plenty amazing! View some highlights HERE

We started the new units for K-4 this week and they are off to a great start! K is making their Green Hero videos, so they are practicing their song, conducting extra clean-ups, and sketching their version of a Green Hero.

1^st grade is creating their collaborative Monarch Movies. First, they brainstormed a list of everything they learned this year about monarch and then divided into groups to make the slides for each topic. The slides were organized into order and combined and then they practiced narrating their sections and managing our recycled film strip “viewer”!

2^nd grade is looking for more ways to combat waste on campus and to that end helped our Kinder by conducting a clean-up in front of the school. They collected a large box full of trash from just the small garden area by the Gold Car rider dismissal area. They sorted it and were shocked to see how much plastic trash is everywhere.

3^rd grade started working with Scratch. They worked through the tutorial projects at their own pace to acquaint themselves with the new programming environment and then started creating their own!

4^th grade began their Interactive Stories using Scratch and Makey Makey. In teams they selected either fiction, non-fiction, or poetry and divided their subject into pieces. Then each team member created an illustrated book page and wrote a Scratch program to animate their page. At the end, all the pages were lined up in order and everyone went down the line to enjoy the stories!

5^th grade hosted our 2^nd Cardboard Arcade for the year. They hosted Ms. Tran’s kindergarten and a wonderful time was had by all!

Friday saw our Kindergarten Eco-Schools USA Green Heroes’ annual Trash Bash. All eight of our K classes met outside for a massive litter pick-up and then they sorted the trash into categories. For the second year in a row, they discovered that plastic trash is the biggest culprit.

In the STEAM Lab we were able to squeeze in a little Free Build Friday too!

Our 3-5 Name that Book team competed on Wednesday. This group has done a great book with the book list! They have been hosting a popular series of Book Talks on the morning announcements! Check out the Name That Book tab at the top of this page to see some.Thank you to the Piney Point PTO for treating our readers to lunch!

Digital Making Club – 3^rd grader Krisha finished our first Scratch + Makey Makey interactive story! She wrote and illustrated an original story and then created a Scratch project that animated her tale. She attached copper tape to the backs of her pages to connect them to the Makey Makey and make her book interactive! The rest of the 3^rd grade is right behind her in completing the work.

4^th and 5^th grade began work on their Interactive stories today, and 2^nd grade completed rehearsals for taping their Ozobot Robo-Retell.

Our Junior No Place For Hate subcommittee started work on our next campus-wide event. They are writing their own version of Dr. Seuss' The Sneetches.

Saturday, our UIL team competed at Northside High School in Oral Reading English and Spanish and Creative and Ready Writing. We are so proud of these super talented Panthers! Thanks to Ms. Hernandez and Ms. Wheatley for chaperoning, our Panther Parents for their support, and the PTO for sponsoring lunch!

2019-20 STEAM Lab week 24

A short, but productive week!

The week was suddenly cut short by a broken water main, so K-2 were unable to complete their projects. They will return to the lab one day next week to wrap up their last bits and pieces!

3^rd and 4^th finished their Ozobot Robo-Retells with 3^rd grade adding a circular course to their water cycles!

4th grade hosted a couple of story parties with students from Ms. Caro and Ms. Colmenero's kindergarten classes. They read selections from the K-2 Name That Book list. Everyone involved had a fantastic time!

Ms. Limon’s 5^th grade hosted the year’s first Cardboard Arcade! We begin this unit with this video about Caine’s Arcade

and the students choose a partner and begin designing! They invited Ms. Montoya’s 1^st grade to come play their games. Everyone had a fantastic time!

This week Ms. Ballentine’s 3^rd graders skyped with animal scientist, Kelimar Diaz. She shared a fantastic set of slides detailing her personal journey to a science career and then answered everyone’s questions about her work which focuses on terrestrial limbless undulatory locomotion.

Digital Making Club – 4^th and 5^th grade started working through a Scratch Challenge pack, 3^rd grade made impressive progress on their Scratch + Makey Makey interactive storytelling projects,

while second grade finished their Ozobot Robo-Retell of Little Red Riding Hood.

This week was rich in amazing arts experiences! Kindergarten had musicians from our beloved Arts Partners DaCamera in the classroom for their Great Train Race Music Encounters. 

Then on Tuesday, 4^th grade went to the Houston Symphony for a concert program that demonstrated how music can tell a narrative. Students were introduced to the way plot, setting, and character can be expressed musically. They were treated to the Marriage of Figaro Overture by Mozart, a movement from Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, a couple of Spanish dances, Stravinsky’s Infernal Dance, Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King, and Bernstein’s Overture to West Side Story.

We love being an Arts Connect Creative Campus! It is wonderful having the chance to participate in these fantastic Arts Integration programs.

Next week our 3-5 Name That Book team heads to competition, so wish us luck!