Category Archives: Early Education

Organizations team up to offer reading incentive for Sherman ES students

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LyondellBasell and Changing Young Children’s Lives through Education (CYCLE) led Sherman Elementary School students in a pep rally to celebrate the organizations’ donation of $30,000 to the school.

CYCLE rewards students with new bicycles for achieving better academic performance in the classroom. The donation will support Sherman’s early childhood reading program, and the students will participate in CYCLE’s reading program throughout the 2016 fall semester. Students who reach their reading goals will be awarded one of several bicycles in December donated by LyondellBasell.

HISD receiving $9.2 million grant from TEA for pre-K program

The Texas Education Agency on Tuesday awarded the Houston Independent School District a $9.2 million grant to enhance its early childhood education program.

HISD is among 578 school systems across Texas to be awarded a grant as part of Gov. Greg Abbott’s high-quality prekindergarten initiative. The $116 million grant program allows districts and charters to receive funding for qualifying pre-K students in addition to the half-day Foundation School Program funding that is already received for each eligible pre-K student. To receive the grant funding, a district or charter must meet certain enhanced quality standards related to curriculum, teacher qualifications, academic performance, and family engagement.

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District expands Pre-K options with new Early Childhood Center set to open in North Forest area 

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Families with preschoolers in the northeast area of Houston will have a new option for the upcoming school year, as HISD is set to add to its portfolio of Pre-K options with a new Early Childhood Center in the North Forest neighborhood, located on Mesa Drive just north of Tidwell.

The new Pre-K facility was specifically designed to enhance the educational experience of the district’s youngest learners, an effort that HISD has been building on over the years.

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Farias ECC garden receives certification from National Wildlife Federation

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Farias Early Childhood Center’s student garden recently was certified as a wildlife habitat by the National Wildlife Federation.

The Farias garden provides a haven for small animals and insects that desperately need homes in Houston’s urban environment. In order to achieve certification, the garden had to meet criteria such as providing cover, nectar, and water for wildlife.

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Take a trip around the world at expo of Pre-K students’ work

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In honor of Laurenzo Early Childhood Center becoming a dual-language school this year, the faculty adopted an international theme for their annual expo. Every class chose a different country to study for eight weeks, and their project-based lesson plans included students’ asking questions, engaging in investigations, and making discoveries.

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‘Week of the Young Child’ addresses the needs of our littlest learners

 

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The week of April 10-16 is the Week of the Young Child, an annual celebration sponsored by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) to put a public spotlight on the needs of young children and address those needs through early childhood programs and services.

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North Forest Early Childhood Center moving toward completion date

North Forest Early Childhood Center is moving toward completion at a rapid pace, with steel framing complete and mechanical and electrical system installation underway.

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Barbara and Neil Bush visit Walnut Bend ES to kick off ‘National Read Aloud Month’

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March is National Read Aloud Month, and Barbara Bush and her son Neil were at Walnut Bend Elementary School on March 2, 2016, to bring attention to the annual observance. The Barbara Bush Houston Literacy Foundation has joined forces with HISD and 14 other Houston literacy organizations to increase awareness of the importance of reading to children so that they can learn, grow, and succeed.

“It’s so great to see people coming together around literacy,” said Neil Bush. “We shamelessly use my mother to draw attention to the importance of literacy.”

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HISD seeking families and home instructors for HIPPY program

HISD’s Family and Community Engagement department is still recruiting families and part-time home instructors to work with the Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) program for the 2015–2016 school year.

HIPPY is a school readiness program for 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children that helps parents prepare their preschoolers for academic success. Instructors visit parents in their homes for an hour a week over a 30-week period during the school year, and model research-based learning activities designed to help Pre-K children develop skills in reading, math, and science. Parents then practice the activities with their children over the week until they learn a new activity during the next lesson. Children whose parents participate in the program consistently outperform their peers in reading and math in kindergarten and first grade.

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Academic Parent Teacher Teams (APTT) set the stage for student success

This year, in nearly 200 classrooms at nine HISD elementary schools, parents are experiencing a new kind of parent-teacher conference that gives them the tools both to expand their children’s learning and to monitor their progress.

Schools in their second or third years of implementing the Academy Parent-Teacher Teams (APTT) program are continuing to perfect and expand the new model of meetings to empower parents to help their children learn outside of school.

Eliot, Gallegos, Kennedy, Mitchell, Piney Point, Shadowbriar, and Tijerina elementary schools, as well as Fonwood Early Childhood Center and the Wharton Dual Language Academy, all recently completed their first round of fall APTT meetings.

The model replaces traditional parent-teacher conferences with three 75-minute group meetings involving all parents in the class, and one 30-minute individual session with the student, teacher, and parents. During group meetings, teachers share student performance data and expectations for the class, review skills, and model hands-on activities parents can do at home to help their children master skills. Parents practice the activities at home with their kids over a 60-day period until their next meeting, when they can again review the data and see how their child has progressed. Continue reading →