I love Genius Hour, but I was thinking about how to introduce it to younger children, not necessarily the Foundation Key Stage as school life for them is like Genius Curriculum. For Year 1, where the children have just moved from the EYFS and are very young, there may still need to be a little guidance or structure and teachers may also need a little taster before going for all out creativity. There is always the Cardboard Challenge
http://imagination.is/storybook/a-new-movement-unleashes-the-genius-in-every-kid/
Made famous by 

This is great but I wanted something for teachers that were a little wary of Genius Hour and needed something to gently ease them and their children into the creative process. Inspired by this video 'Creativity Requires Time' I thought about how I could bring this into the classroom. 

I loved this concept and how creative the children were, so using this idea I created a worksheet to trial with my Year 3 class:

Lorelai didn't want to create a book about one subject so chose to do one about the things she is good at. In her book we have songs, instructions for making daisy chains (you may see the detailed black diagrams in the photo) and a collage of a story that she has started to write about a monster that blocks the light from the sun and the moon.

Loom bands are huge at the moment, and Brogan taught me how to make a fishtail loom. Her passion for Loom Bands led to her creating an extremely detailed instruction book on making them. 

Bradley has a keen interest in our local ferry firm as his Dad works for them, so his project started as a collage of the ferries. Bradley then developed this by making the ticket office using a cardboard box and various craft items.

Leana loves Frozen and chose to write a song book, during her presentation she sung each song that she had written to us.

Damien wanted to get better at drawing, so decided to make a book and practise his drawings. He included all of the things he liked such as Star Wars, zombies, Super Heroes and Minecraft.

Declan wanted to make a book explaining about the World Cup, unfortunately these photos do not do credit to his extremely detailed drawings.

Ashton had a secret talent for milkshake making and wanted to share this with us. Ashton created his homepage on paper first before transferring his ideas to the computer. What I loved about Ashtons blog was that he had thought about the possibility of advertising and had Mcdonalds featured on his home page :-)

Tyron started his project wanting to make a crocodile out of an egg box, after making it he realised the croc needed somewhere to stay so he made a hotel. The hotel has two floors and includes a pull out bed and curtains.

Apologies for a lack of updates, life has been very busy but the children have continued to do their Genius Hour projects. One of my colleagues took a session for me as I was working in another class, she said that she was worried about how with 34 Year 2 children Genius Hour would work, but she loved it. She was amazed at how on task each child was, keen to share their projects and immersed in their learning. This was music to my ears as Genius Hour will be part of the curriculum throughout the school next year.

So here we are, the last week and the presentations of Genius Hour projects, some have been finished but others are going home as a summer project.

Dolcie started off with a drawn plan of her dance studio and it evolved into a fully working made with junk dance studio. Dolcie showed great attention to detail even including coat hangers for visitors.

Leo has ADHD and is on the autistic spectrum, he loves Mario at the moment and will talk for hours about the different games, consoles they were for and the year released. Leo made the characters at home with his sister using Hama beads. Leo brought them in to school to create several animations, this is just one of them.

Steven started with a simple design on a3 paper, but when he got on to the computer his imagination and knowledge ran riot. During his presentation he talked about the new Batmobile and a sinister new villain for the new Batman movie.

Emma's beautifully decorated text book contains songs that she has written herself. Emma has the titles in the contents and has written three songs so far. Unfortunately for poor Emma I chose to sing one to the class.

Kieron was determined to perfect his webshooters, he made several prototypes and during this it is demonstrated them during this presentation. Kieron would ask most days if "is it Genius Hour today".

Jimmy had one of the more adventurous ideas, he wanted to create a superhero costume. He designed it on paper first, then used an old t-shirt to make the logo. Jimmy's costume was finished off with a black cloak, great eh.

I am sure we have a future fashion designer in Chloe. She designed her dresses on a3 paper to start then made larger version which could be worn by a paper Elsa. I love the attention to detail Chloe has put into each dress, they fit Elsa perfectly.

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 !!!!