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!

Welcome Back, Panthers!

I am excited to make this year the best the ever in STEAM lab. I am looking forward to seeing all of our Piney Point families at Meet the Teacher tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully everyone had a wonderful summer and is ready to create amazing things in the lab this year.

My summer included attending the Kennedy Center’s Southwest Arts Integration conference and working with a great group of middle school girls on projects such as an mBot Olympics and building a functioning robotic hand.

Last year I worked on earning National Geographic Certified Educator status and their Learning Framework, which outlines a set of attitudes, skills, and knowledge that make up the "explorer's mindset", will be the foundation for our STEAM lab Project Based Learning this year. Also, we will be looking to expand and build on our Eco-Schools projects and develop even more effective Arts Integration with our outstanding Arts Partners. Both of these areas, as always, will be incorporated into the physical and digital projects in STEAM lab.

I am getting everything ready for you, Panthers – I cannot wait to see what you will create!

Not 100% ready yet - but I will be soon!

STEAM Lab 2018-19 Week 32

Such a great week! Campus Cleanups, 3 Cardboard Arcades, Da Camera Music Encounters, Free Build days, Scratch projects, and so much Code.org progress.

Kinder Green Heroes gave the outdoor stage area and our rock garden a thorough Spring Cleaning! They collaborated with their partners in the lab to complete multiple levels in Code.org and earned a Free Build Day! 

We had 3 different 1^st grade classes visit the lab this week. Ms. Pineda’s class worked hard on their Code.org course and earned a Free Build Day AND an invitation to Ms. Grimaldo’s 4^th grader’s Cardboard Arcade, while Ms. Brown’s class came to play Ms. Mulry’s 5^th grade arcade and Ms. Montoya came for Ms. Limon’s group.

Ms. Grimaldo’s 4^th grade not only created their Cardboard Arcade, they also were working on a special Scratch music composition program. They also had a special Music Encounter with Da Camera called Decoding Spirituals which they raved about!

Ms. Limon’s group had a shortened week, as Ms. Mulry’s class came Monday to have their arcade play day, but they succeeded admirably in getting their projects made.

All our visiting classes had a fantastic time and it was wonderful to see so much creativity on display!