Here are a few pictures of our projects, and a few closing thoughts for next year.
Some of the projects were green screen technology-based. We used DoInk for them, though the large production was hard to do in DoInk, so I ended up with it in iMovies. This is just one of the scenes we shot. My student's Genius Hour project was actually directing the movie. She caste the movie, developed the props (with help of her classmates and her final approval), and then ran the production. She was adorable! If someone forgot lines, she would duck under the camera and run to them to whisper the lines to each of the actors.https://app.seesaw.me/pages/shared_item?item_id=item.9b8250f8-fd04-4acf-a0fe-a3faef3de525&share_token=s5q40kzWTPaoMMecqR6CmQ&mode=share
Two students painted with acrylics. At the beginning, one of my sweeties called her canvas her, "easel". So much learning went into the project, including mixing, color temperatures, which parts to start with, and most importantly, our guest artist stressed the importance of creativity!!! Huge thanks to Tara Kilian, former colleague and dear friend who took time out of her day to come and spend it with my students!
This young fellow wanted to learn how to weld! Yes, weld! He'd already had some experience, so going to the high school to do some hands-on welding was certainly a treat for him!
I invited a staff member whois a master gardener in to work with two of my students who wanted to learn about gardening. My students looked through books to decide what they wanted to plant, then I went to Walmart and took pictures of their seed racks. I let them choose which variety of seeds to choose from the pictures, if there was choice (color of flowers, variety of carrots, etc.). She would stop every couple of weeks to check on the plants and make sure they were doing ok, thin them out with my students, and let them know what to watch for next.
We had many sewing projects. Luckily, I had a parent who was willing to come in and volunteer her time and talent. While she is a stay at home mom, she is also busy sewing diapers for stillborn babies. She sends them to hospitals all over the United States, donating them. They had a stillborn baby themselves, and saw the need and felt the desire for helping other parents through such a difficult time. Just a side note. as we don't always get to hear what our students' parents do for work, let alone for hobbies and interests. She rapidly became a superhero to me!! She came several times, bringing her sewing machine each time, and her two little ones, who were incredibly well-behaved!! She even took a project home to work on, to get it almost completed so we could put the final stitches in at school during the last few days (we knew we were not going to get it completed otherwise). In addition to this wonderful mom, I had a high school helper who was a wonderful seamstress as well. She helped on the days she came (every Tuesday and Thursday). She also helped with the green screen productions while I monitored behaviors and video taped other projects.
How can you not LOVE the excitement Genius Hour brings to students????!!!!!!!
https://app.seesaw.me/pages/shared_item?item_id=item.58dcfc53-50a5-4154-b16c82a3a50d51e2&share_token=v4k1bSl_Tsatxgz33aP8vQ&mode=share
Two of my boys wanted to learn about the Vikings. They did research of different plays, how many players are on the field at one time, how many games they play, and things like that. Because so many classmates were doing projects, we decided to have them make pennants, so they had something to take home as well.
https://app.seesaw.me/pages/shared_item?item_id=item.b82cc86c-45e2-4900-8e2d-2f9134da049a&share_token=ndCNce2zS5SAm1f27ocDKw&mode=share
This student wanted to learn how to build a robot. When he found that would be just a little too ambitious for a Genius Hour project at school (too costly for us, for one, too time consuming for another), he began looking through the robotics book for an alternative project. He found a recycled pop bottle car project in the book, but it had no directions. He researched it on YouTube, made a list of all the materials we would need, and we began collecting materials. The only item I needed to buy was the motor (which ended up being too heavy for the car). His Genius Hour helper is one of our IT technicians for our district. He had a blast, as did my student! If you watch the video clip, you'll notice the battery had run out of power. I ran and got a new battery, which worked, but the car still didn't run very well at school. My student and his dad worked on it at home, and with changing the aerodynamics of the fan on the car, they got it to work much better!!
Other projects not shown included more green screen projects with Leogs, Minions, and Avengers; a tie blanket for a student who moved shortly after we began Genius Hour, and research on an angel shark.
I kept the materials which were donated and were not consumable. Most of the students understood that next years students would be using the materials for their projects as well.
At the end of the school year, I asked my students to complete pages in Seesaw to document their "Favorites" during the year. Here's just a couple samples of favorite things we did in our classroom. Many students said Genius Hour was their favorite part of their whole year this year. They loved the projects they got to choose for themselves.
Genius Hour was a success for many reasons
* I let the students choose their projects
* Students helped each other, but asked first if they could
* We connected with families, community and staff from other buildings to complete projects, building upon their knowledge and strengths
Things I will do differently next year
*start sooner with a more controlled project first
-I want to teach my 1st graders how to become good researchers, to know where to best look for answers with a controlled subject so when they choose their projects, they will have a solid base to turn to.
* Broaden my community involvement in the projects my students choose (depending on the subjects, of course)
*Try to blog the culminating data and photos sooner and more often. I believe sharing with other teachers is important. We learn from each other.
I hope this has been helpful!! Feel free to email or tweet me with questions!
