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 !!!!
"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 !!!!
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