The Mathematics Shed
Contact Us
  • The Mathematics Shed
    • About
  • Maths Starter Shed
    • Maths Starter Shed 2
    • Maths Starter Shed 3
    • Maths Starter Shed 4
    • Maths Starter Shed 5
  • Encanto Shed
  • Warm Up Shed
  • The Place Value Shed
  • Maths Addition Shed
  • Maths Subtraction Shed
  • Multiplication Resources Shed
  • Multiplication Shed
    • Multiplication Shed 2
    • Multiplication Shed 3
    • Multiplication Shed 4
  • Maths Division Shed
  • Maths Geometry Shed
  • Roman Numeral Shed
  • Fractions Shed
  • Maths SATs Shed
  • Maths Tool Shed.
    • Maths Tool Shed 2
  • Counting Shed
    • Counting Shed 2
  • Shape Shed
  • Maths Shopping Shed
  • Maths Time Shed
  • Measuring Shed
    • Blueprint Shed
  • Data Shed
  • Superhero Maths Shed
  • Lego Maths Shed
  • Star Wars Maths Shed
  • Mr Johnston Shed
  • DIRT Mat Shed
  • The Singapore Maths Shed
  • Maths Topic Shed
  • Numberock Shed
  • Beat the Brain Shed
  • Maths Money Shed
  • Maths Inquiry Shed
  • Chris Moyles Musical Maths Shed
  • Maths Story Shed
    • Maths Story Shed 2
    • Maths Story Shed 3
    • Maths Story Shed 4
    • Maths Story Shed 5
    • Maths Story Shed 6
    • Maths Story Shed 7
  • Maths Challenge Shed
  • Number Formation Shed
  • The Maths Top Trumps Shed
  • Popular Culture Shed
    • Popular Culture Shed 2
    • Popular Culture Shed 3
  • Dr Who Maths Shed
  • Minions Maths Shed
  • Mister Teach Minecraft Maths
  • Popular Culture in Numbers Shed
  • The Cooking Maths Shed
  • The MF Thinking Shed
  • Early Years Shed
    • Early Years Shed 2
  • Visual Stimulus Shed
  • Maths Map Shed
  • The Lutwyche Secondary Shed
    • The Lutwyche Secondary Shed 2
    • The Lutwyche Secondary Shed 3
  • Secondary Shed
  • Calculation Shed
  • Estimation Shed
  • Maths Word Problem Shed
  • Rounding Shed
  • Maths Myths and Legends Shed
  • Maths Board Game Shed
  • The World in Numbers Shed
  • Maths Around the World Shed
    • Maths Around the World Shed 2
    • Maths Around the World Shed 3
  • Musical Maths Shed
  • The Sesame Street Shed
  • They Might Be Giants Shed
    • They Might Be Giants Shed 2
    • They Might be Giants Shed 3
  • Hard Sums Shed
  • Maths Gifs Shed
  • Picture Equation Shed
  • Maths Seasonal Resources Shed
    • The Frozen Page
  • Maths Intervention Shed
  • The New Curriculum Shed
    • The New Curriculum Shed 2
  • Maths All Around Us Shed
  • Outdoor Learning Shed
  • Maths at Home Shed
  • Infographics Shed
  • The Maths Snacks Shed
  • History of Maths Shed
  • AdamUp Shed
  • The Who Done it Shed
  • Mr A, Mr C and Mr D present shed
  • Flash Games Shed
  • Nostalgia Shed
  • Genius Hour
  • Links Shed
  • Past its Sell By Date Shed
  • Miscellaneous
    • Puppet Craft
    • Blog of Stuff
  • Class Dojo
  • Ditty Shed
  • Padlet Page
  • The Gender Neutral Shed

Genius Hour Week 3

6/21/2014

1 Comment

 
In this weeks blog I would like to share some of my children's very creative ideas and ways of presenting their projects. More good news this week, I met with Mike Fleetham at school (@miketweetham) to plan a staff training session on 'Genius Hour' in the new term. I will let you know how it develops.
Picture
Tuliann: Ballet Instructions.
These started last week as just the triangle diagram on squared paper. Tuliann has really let her creative side run riot this week. The foam wotsits are ballerinas in the hall, the elastic bands show the movements the ballerinas must take, the top left is a seating area and the top right is a drinking fountain.
Bryson: Minecraft Inca Village
Bryson has been inspired by our topic to create an Inca village using Minecraft. I love the detail in this, the sense of scale, the use of a hill and water.
Picture
Bonnie: Frozen 3 Storyboard
Bonnie has really gone to town with her storyboard, last week we had a few sketches and notes, this week we have a 3D title and characters in place. I look forward to seeing the story next week.
Chloe: Dresses for Elsa
Chloe created some beautiful designs on a3 paper last week (See Genius hour Week 2). This week she has printed out Elsa so that she can create dresses which she can blue tac to her. I love the way that she has carefully measured and cut the dresses to fit the picture.
Harvey: Book About Famous Youtubers.
I love the artistic style Harvey has given this, he is drawing the Youtubers in a Mincraft style and has also included hashtags.
Picture
Dolcie: Dance Studio
Last week Dolcie designed her dance Studio on paper, this week she has recreated it using junk modelling material. She plans next week to open the back of the box so that we can see inside the dance studio.
This is just a handful of the projects being worked upon, what I love about them is the way the ideas have evolved, children have taken their original ideas and used resources around the classroom to improve upon their ideas. I also love that I have had little to no input with any of these ideas...surely that epitomises child lead learning?
1 Comment

Genius Hour - Week 2

6/12/2014

0 Comments

 
Well, this week saw our class doing Genius Hour in the class that they will be going into next year. In new surroundings and crammed into a smaller class I didn't think the children would be so keen this week....... How wrong was I, we shared the ideas that pupils had last week, but many had been thinking about their projects and wanted to change them, "fine" I said.
"Who would like to change their project?"
Several hands shot up and we shared new ideas, there was a real buzz about starting the projects. My input was very minimal, I reminded the children that we would be doing this at this time every week, and showed them the resources they had at their disposal. Away they went, I wandered the classroom talking to children about their projects, their ideas, their aims, how they were going to go about the final product. all children regardless of ability had a clear idea of what they wanted to do and how they wanted to go about it. I noticed several things this week, children used very little in the way of resources, A3 and A4 paper, some lined paper and for those creating books they used old exercise books. Research was done using an ipad and another ipad was being used for stop frame animation. Children also started making small groups, those working on Frozen 2 or clothes for Elsa started sharing ideas, the boys making superhero projects looked at each others work....this was not something I had suggested but the children chose to do it, and I was not going to stop it.

So in my two weeks of 'Genius Hour' we have so far had:

Children working collaboratively.
Literacy.
Handwriting.
Creativity.
ICT.
Design.
Maths.
Music.
Art.
Critical Skills.

Not too bad in two sessions, and it would be hard to imagine such a range of skills covered in any other lesson.

Unfortunately 2.30 and time to clear up came too soon, but as we went back to our own class, a young lad who struggles a little with his application to work said to me "Mr Andre' can I take my project home to carry on". 

Roll on next week !!!!
0 Comments

Genius Hour Week 1

6/5/2014

9 Comments

 
During a chat on #aussieED two weeks ago, several teaching colleagues were talking about an initiative called 'Genius Hour' and the amazing work that students had produced. Intrigued I went to the website www.geniushour.com and started to watch the videos, I was hooked. this was learning as it should be. Children choose a topic that they are interested in and work on a weekly project linked with that topic. I emailed my head with the link and spoke to Mike Fleetham @miketweetham on Twitter about it as I felt it was right up his street ( as they say in laymans terms). Mike loved it, my head loved it, so it was with great enthusiasm I started my first session with my children this week. I have a class of 33 Year two children of very mixed abilities and a majority of boys. Here is a very brief report on how the first session went.


I started the session by showing Dr. Seuss ‘The Places We’ll Go’ and asked the children what story or message the film was telling us. Through questioning and prompts the children said 'that it was about having dreams and overcoming problems'. I linked this to 'Genius Hour' and said this may happen to some of you over the next few weeks, but like in the video we must persevere. I then showed them this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-gQLqv9f4o


Kid President (please watch it)

To help inspire the children (they loved it) then they looked at projects other children had done during Genius Hour, through a powerpoint, videos and blogs.

Children then went off and wrote down three things they were experts / interested in and ideas for projects linked to those (I have worksheet blanks and powerpoints if anybody is interested). 



Here are a few that we have.

Leo - I Want to create a book with the history of Mario

Connor – I am going to make a lion pop up book

Bryson – Make a Batman cartoon film

Ashton – A website to teach you how to make the perfect milkshake.

Declan – A video showing people how to play video games

Harvey – Make a book about famous Youtubers

Emma – To make my own make-up using natural things

Jimmy – To make a football mini game

Steven – Invent a new Batman suit

Toby – A video game called ‘Dancing Dinosaurs’ !!!!!!

Bradley – A website about Red funnel ferries

Dolcie – Make a model of a dancer

Toby – Making a robot that does housework

Ewan – To make a fishing blog

Gracie – A guide to beating your brother or sister in a running race

Bonnie – Make a ‘Frozen 2’ movie



What surprised me was despite being the last hour on a Thursday afternoon, all children were engaged, there was not a child that couldn't think of an idea. The enthusiasm was great, while children were thinking of ideas and bringing them to me I was sharing them through mini plenaries. We finished by looking at our ideas and each child had to star the one project they would like to work on over the coming weeks. 


Next week, I will be providing a bank of resources for the children to use but I am going to let them choose the best way to use the resources and begin to create their projects. Roll on next Thursday!!

9 Comments
    View All Nominated Educators

    Archives

    September 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014

    Author

    Graham Andre' Editor of The Numeracy Shed and Year 2 teacher at Lanesend Primary School on the Isle of Wight

    Categories

    All
    Geniushour
    #geniushour
    Genius Hour

    RSS Feed

    genius10minutes.pdf
    File Size: 212 kb
    File Type: pdf
    Download File

www.numeracyshed.com
www.mathematicshed.com 
Proudly powered by Weebly