Genius Hour - Take 4

This week, we kicked off Genius Hour by reading But I Read It on the Internet by Toni Buzzeo and Reach for the Stars and Other Advice for Life's Journey by Serge Bloch. Both great books and highly recommended! Buzzeo's book laid the ground work for great discussion about researching on the internet. Very appropriate for 3rd grade and they were all very engaged! In the book, the awesome librarian shares a "Gizmo" with students - a website evaluation tool. This is something I want to create for Genius Hour research for my kids. Need to think about it and how I want it to look... Perhaps even a half sheet of laminated paper with a checklist to refer to?

After our inspirational reads, we moved on to internet searches. We practiced searching for a topic and citing our source. In Buzzeo's book, the librarian teaches kids to check out the "URL". Today's GH goal: find one fact on and write it on a piece of loose leaf paper. Underneath your fact, write the URL. We practiced shortening it up a bit and only writing until the first slash. This seemed to work well with the kids.

After we searched on our Chromebooks for a bit, we took a shot at our new reflection page. Two simple questions:
1. What is one thing that went GREAT today?
2. What is one thing that was challenging today?

Heartbreak of the day, right here folks...

We then excitedly got our new folders. I gave each student a plastic, 3 pronged folder to keep their GH work in each week. Passing out folders and practicing putting our papers in was pretty exciting stuff! I really liked the folders and I think they will definitely help keep these third graders much better organized.

Overall, today's Genius Hour session went much smoother. Every single child was engaged and excited. I feel like that makes it a success in and of itself.

I have recruited my dear friend and Library Media Specialists for next week's Genius Hour....(insert music and dun, dun, dun sound). We are going to collaborate this week and decide - explore databases? Practice internet research? Practice book research?

Genius Hour 3

This week's Genius Hour Plan: Complete a Project Proposal. We first read two great books: The OK Book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and 11 Experiments that Failed by Jenny Offill. The kids enjoyed them both. They especially loved 11 Experiments that Failed, as we have been conducting experiments about the states of matter.

Students were asked to complete the following questions:

• Name
• Date
• Topic
• My INQUIRY question will be (What are you wondering about?):
• Materials I need for my research (How do you plan to find the answer to your question?):
• How do you plan to show/share/present your research findings?
• Teacher Approval

By the end of last week, I had conferenced with each student and worked with them to create an inquiry question. This week, two students had completely forgotten their topics! Most of them did however, remember their exact question. Overall, students had difficulty answering these questions - even with modeling and assistance. Many students were demonstrating the exact reason that I wanted to implement Genius Hour - they were scared to take a risk. This task wasn't a workbook page or a defined set of problems, this was open ended and much more difficult for them. 

We worked on these proposals for most of the period. With about 15 minutes left, I asked students to complete the daily log reflection (posted last week). This was a complete flop. I am going to take off the "Notes" and "Resources" boxes and simply create a new form that focusing on reflection. The theme of Genius Hour Week 3 was - HOT MESS. I felt a little discouraged, but then remembered our classroom's precept of the month...

Genius Hour 2

Today we had our 2nd Genius Hour. We read The Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires and Olivia's Birds: Saving the Gulf by Olivia Bouler. Many of the kids had read The Magnificent Thing, which surprised me because I had not heard of it before exploring Genius Hour this summer.The kids LOVED both books. They were very engaged and amazed that an eleven-year-old girl wrote a book! Some got a twinkle in their eyes.... You could see them thinking, "Hey, I could do that!"

I then told the kids that we were going to continue brainstorming using our electronic "Wonder Wall" - a shared Google Doc. The kids were immediately excited - time to use their Chromebooks! They weren't quite excited about what we were actually doing yet. This was a great idea. Or, so I thought... The kids were not focused on brainstorming, they were very concerned about what other kids were doing and who was writing in their "box" (I created a table and each student was designated a box to brainstorm in). The shared Doc was also updating a little slowly and lagging in updating, which is completely understandable as there were 20 people using it at the same time! I decided to pull the plug about half way through and have the kids create their own Google Doc and share it with me. I told them to type in "Sarah Simac". They were amazed that I had a first name! The stress level in the room instantly decreased.

I want to note that before we began brainstorming, I told the kids that we would decide at the end of the period if we were going to do one group project or individual projects.

As our Genius Hour went on, the kids became more and more interested in their own ideas. I then began conferencing with each student. There were some kids that definitely needed more modeling and prompting through the brainstorming process. There were also some kids that completely blew me away. My favorite was a little girl who recently donated her hair to an organization that makes wigs for children with Cancer and other diseases. She wanted to learn, "How can I get other kids to cut their hair?" She will be making a PSA that we are going to share with the school and world on Youtube! I just finished individually emailing parents about their child's choice of topic for Genius Hour. The goal for next week: tweak our big QUESTION and work on a Project Plan. I also want students to reflect and complete our Genius Hour Project Log.

Genius Hour 1

Today marks the end of our first week of school, and what an amazing week it was! The students were eager to learn and ready to go! I have to note that this year, I believe the beginning of the week went exceptionally well. I am so lucky that I have taught this group in kindergarten, 2nd grade, and now 3rd grade! I have had over half of the students in class before. I have been fortunate enough to work with the rest of the students in other grade level activities. Needless to say, I not only know all of my students - I have relationships with them. I was not going to start Genius Hour this early in the year, but decided to jump right in!

On the 2nd day of school, the students carried their "Chrome Eggs" around. These were hardboiled eggs that we pretended were our Chromebooks. There were a lot of cracked "Chromebooks"; however, I believe the activity was extremely successful. We reflected as a class and came up with great lists of how to handle our Chromebooks appropriately and what not to do. The next day, students were given their Chromebooks and taught the basics. Today, they learned how to access Drive, how to create a Google Doc, and how to share a Doc with others. During this lesson a light bulb went off in my head... we would brainstorm on a shared Google Doc!

This afternoon, we started our FIRST Genius Hour! We began by watching and discussing a Prezi that I made - click HERE to view. We then looked up the word Genius and found the following definition:
: a very smart or talented person : a person who has a level of talent or intelligence that is very rare or remarkable

: a person who is very good at doing something
: great natural ability : remarkable talent or intelligence

We had a great discussion about what genius was, that led naturally into an in depth about passion and things that got us excited!

I had students fill out an interest survey:

Name: _______________________Date: ________________
Think FAST! What are 3 things you wonder about?
1._______________________________________________

2. .______________________________________________

3. _______________________________________________
What do you like to do most at home?
________________________________________________
What are your favorite hobbies?
________________________________________________
What are your favorite books or magazines?
________________________________________________
My Favorite:
Team: ______________________________________________
Game:  _____________________________________________
Animal:  ____________________________________________
Musical Group:  ______________________________________
Sport:  _____________________________________________
Subject in School:  ____________________________________

This was a great idea; however, it was overwhelming for some of my students who have difficulty reading and writing. I did write for some students, but decided to scrap it about half way through. I then opened up a Google Doc that I named "Genius Hour - Wonder Wall" and shared with students. Click HERE to view our shared Doc. Unfortunately, we only had about 10 minutes to work on the shared Doc and we had to go to P.E., Power Hour, then HOME! I did share the Doc with parents and invited them to check their child's progress and add ideas with their child whenever they'd like.

Excited for next week!