Students introduce Mrs. Wilder's Class to the Kyle Firefighters.

First  and Second graders at several HCISD schools come together via a video conference to ask Kyle Firefighters questions about fire safety. Students in Mrs. Wilder’s class at KES worked hard for over a week to prepare for the Stop, Drop and Roll Video Conference. Mrs. Lombardo, KES librarian, read the book Stop, Drop and Roll by Margery Cuyler. Students then prepared and practice questions to ask a panel of  Firefighters. Other schools that participated included Hemphill, Fuentes and Blanco Vista. Several schools were able to stream the video conference and send questions in using instant messaging.

Fifth grade students created a color coded map of the 13 colonies using software traditionally used by teachers; Smart Notebook. This software is designed to use with our Smartboards but its funcionality lended itself very well to the completion of the performance indicator for this unit. Using the software, students color coded the New England, Middle and Southern colonies, added icons to represent both geographical and economic factors, and created a legend. Students were then able to save and print this document. Students enjoyed representing their learning of the 13 colonies using this software tool and could quickly recall the geographic and economic features of the 3 areas when asked. They were very proud of their printed maps!

A third grade student practices reflective symmetry.

Four of the six grade levels featured digital math activities using SmartBoards and Mimios at KES’s Family Math night. Students clustered around waiting their turn to play math games and to show their parents the technology tools they use in class to help them learn math. Fifth grade demonstrated how to use the Mimio Interactive white board device. Both Ms. Cannon and Ms. Little use a Mimio as an instructional tool. Students practiced identifying odd and even numbers as well as division in a fast paced game format. Fourth grade students used the SmartBoard to identify  multiples of ten. Third grade students practiced identifying lines of symmetry using an interactive website on their SmartBoard. Place value was the math topic 2nd grade students demonstrated. Using interactive place value blocks, students built numbers on a place value chart and wrote the number they constructed in digital ink. These devices have greatly enhanced instruction by providing additional tools that increase interactivty and motivation to learn.

Allison discusses observations with her team.

Students at Kyle Elementary learned about wind energy and how it is converted into electrical energy using small scale wind turbine models. Students connected their wind turbines to a multimeter to observe and record the electrical output. The following week, students went to the lab and were introduced to Microsoft Excel. They learned the basics of how to enter data into cells and format cell size and text. Students then learned how Excel can calculate for them an average of all of their data. Students inserted a formula to average their groups data and were able to see which group had the highest energy output with their turbine. Students will revisit the wind turbines in May during the experimental design unit and will have the opportunity to adjust variable in the turbines that may affect their energy output. Wind turbine materials were purchased with funding from the Hays Education Foundation.