Yearly Archives: 2014

Elementary students design 3D toys as holiday gifts for kids

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Students in Herrera Elementary School’s 3D design and print club are designing 3D toys of animated characters from movies like “Frozen” and games such as Angry Birds as holiday presents for children in their community. Continue reading →

Early college plus early childhood equals innovative family literacy event

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HISD’s East Early College High School (EECHS) recently held its very first family literacy day—but it wasn’t for the benefit of its own students.

Instead, the event was designed to get some of the district’s youngest pupils interested in reading, and all students from nearby Laurenzo Early Childhood Center were invited to attend.   Continue reading →

Grant brings free books to every student at Crockett ES

Mimi Vance (pink sweater) and former Houston First Lady Andrea White (burgundy sweater) visited Crockett ES on Dec. 2

Mimi Vance (pink sweater) and former Houston First Lady Andrea White (burgundy sweater) visited Crockett ES on Dec. 2

Every student at HISD’s Crockett Elementary School encountered a very special guest bearing gifts on Dec. 2—but it wasn’t Santa Claus.

On that day, four different authors came to campus with copies of their books, which they read aloud from and talked about with students. Pre-K and kindergarten students heard from Mimi Vance and former Houston First Lady Andrea White, who co-authored “Tummies on the Run” and “Snuggles.” First-, second-, and third-grade students met Keith Graves, who wrote “Monsterator,” while fourth- and fifth-graders met René Saldaña, author of “The Mystery of The Mischievous Marker.”

The visits were coordinated by Assistant Principal Dina Rayo-Kirkconnell, who obtained a grant from the Texas Book Festival to underwrite it. The grant also allowed each student to take home a copy of the book he or she learned about, and paid for extra copies of each book to be purchased for the library.

Student videos preparing classmates and teachers for 1:1 laptop initiative

Students at Davis High School are taking an active role in ensuring that their campus is ready this coming January to distribute laptops to all 1,700 of its students. To help with the one-to-one device deployment, the Davis audio/visual production class has made a series of videos for their classmates, as well as for their teachers.   Continue reading →

HSPVA breaks ground for new school in downtown theater district

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Construction at the new High School for the Performing & Visual Arts got an enthusiastic start on Sunday with a groundbreaking ceremony that drew hundreds of people to the school’s new location downtown.

Continue reading →

Packed house at PowerUp training with Mooresville, N.C., educators

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Nearly 150 teachers from across the district packed Carnegie High School on a recent Saturday to attend a half-day training with educators from the Mooresville Graded School District in Mooresville, North Carolina. HISD has partnered with Mooresville to help train and offer professional development to HISD high school teachers involved in PowerUp, the district’s digital transformation effort that includes distributing laptops to every high school student. Continue reading →

Preschool families treated to a children’s museum visit

Almost 500 HISD families participated in interactive learning activities with their preschool children at the Children’s Museum of Houston on Thursday, Dec. 11. The free visit to the museum was funded and organized by the HISD office of Family and Community Engagement as part of its Home Instruction for the Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) program.

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Solving math problems equals large sums for charities

Think Through Math winners When Think Through Math’s “Time for Giving” contest ended on Dec. 5, Ms. Argue’s “Math Masters” team of scholars was just one of two teams that won from the U.S. Central Time Zone and only one of eight teams nationwide. Students earn points by completing math lessons, and the points are then converted into dollars, which are donated to charities across the country. The River Oaks Elementary School math students earned enough points to donate $17,712 to the charities of their choice – Big Brothers Big Sisters and No Kid Hungry. Continue reading →

Chamber of commerce gives laptop case tags for PowerUp schools

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HISD principals accept tags for laptop cases for their schools from the Greater Heights Area Chamber of Commerce.

The Greater Heights Area Chamber of Commerce purchased more than 9,000 luggage tags for five HISD high schools to add to the cases of laptops students are set to receive through the district’s PowerUp program, which will provide every high school student a laptop for use at school and home by 2016. Continue reading →

’Tis the season to be reading

It was a night filled with good cheer during literacy night at Anderson Elementary Dual Language School, when dozens of students and their parents showed up to celebrate literacy and the holidays. Reading, games, and art projects kept students entertained, as various prizes were awarded and refreshments were served.

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