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.

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.

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.

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?

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 !!!!