Medusa and her shadow with Aphrodite before the performance

3^rd grade students from Miss Voges’ and Miss DeRosa’s classes participated in the Myths & Legends videoconference in April. Before meeting via videoconference the classes wrote an original legend or myth and shared it with a partner class. During the videoconference the classes performed their interpretation of the story written by their partner class and shared comments and questions about the productions. Our students enjoyed seeing their words come alive and discussing their ideas and choices with their partner classes at Tobias and Negley. Thank you to all the teachers and students for their hard work!

Apollo and Zeus saved the day!

Mrs. Everette's class did a wonderful job of performing our story about tsunamis.

The spider from the legend written by Mrs. Everette's class

Our hero and the spider lillies

SHES students loved learning about bluebonnets.

Kindergarten students in Mrs. Grim and Mrs. Chitta’s classes participated in a videoconference about our state flower provided by students in Ms. Hoke’s class at Lehman High School. The LHS students are participating in the Kids Creating Community Content (KC3) contest and used the VC with our Kindergarten Suns as practice. Our students had a blast learning about the bluebonnet, including the parts and history of the flower. After the presentation the students used materials sent from Lehman to create their own bluebonnet and show what they learned. Be on the look out for bluebonnets in your neighborhood!

Snowmen from Mr. Brouillard and Mrs. Stapp's classes.

The cold temperatures on Friday, January 21st were perfect for snowmen, even if they were just made out of paper. 3rd grade students at Science Hall and Negley connected through videoconferencing to compare snowmen they created following directions from their partner class. This activity taught students the importance of detail and step by step instructions in how to writing. They had a great time comparing their snowmen and discovering challenges faced by their partner class while building the snowmen. Thank you to the following students and teachers for participating: from Negley Elementary the classes of Mrs. Stapp and Mrs. Bordeau and from Science Hall Elementary the classes of Miss Voges, Mr. Brouillard, and Miss Crawford. Another thank you goes to the Campus Technologists for facilitating this activity: Amy Bradfield , Michelle McCoy, and Meredith O’Bannion.

The snowman from Mrs. Stapp's class at Negley Elementary.

A very large snowlady from Miss Voges' class at Science Hall Elementary.

There were no boundaries for students in Mrs. Swindle’s class on December 15th. Utilizing new technology at Region 13 Educational Service Center and the Video Conferencing equipment at KES, Mrs. Swindle’s class participated in a cultural exchange with secondary school students in Mosbach-Neckarelz Germany. Mrs Lombardo, our Librarian had visited the school and became friends with the teacher of the German students, Corinna Hack. Mrs. Lombardo thought it would be a great experience for the students in the two schools to meet face to face and planned the experience with Ms. Hack. The video conference started out with classes identifying the physical distance between them using Google Earth. Mrs. Swindle’s students then shared information about our culture; money, sports, hispanic cultural influence and holiday traditions. The German students  shared similar information which was followed by a question/answer session. The German students had only been learning English for a couple of years but our students thought they did a great job of communicating. This was a wonderful experience for classes on both sides of the Atlantic and we would like to pursue further communication opportunities with this class.

Students share Texas cultural information with German students.

 

Anakin Sywalker from Kindergarten and a pirate from 2nd grade.

Kindergarten and second grade students at Science Hall created camouflage for turkeys before the Thanksgiving holiday. After reading the book The Plump and Perky Turkey by Theresa Bateman, the students created disguises for their turkeys. We connected with schools in Lubbock, Texas and Huntington, West Virginia to share our turkey disguises and see the interesting costumes our partner classes created. Our Shining Suns were very creative and did a great job presenting to the other classes. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!