Genius Hour x100ish = Holy Guacamole!

I'm a year-round teacher.  Not that my school runs year-round*, we have summer break during June, July, and a bit of August like most schools around our area, however, even in the summer I am thinking about my classes for next year, what my plans are, hopes and dreams, all of that.

*We do have quite a good summer school program so if you count that we really do sort of run our school year-round.  I opted out of teaching summer school last year to spend some much needed time at home with my own two kids.

So, while I was supposedly enjoying my 2 months off of school with not a care in the world about my next school year <sarcasm is high>, I spent a lot of time doing my own professional development.  We all know that means Pinterest and Twitter  because let's be real, that's where all the best ideas come from.  My biggest take-away from my personal summertime PD was Genius Hour.  I came across it at some point and it peaked my interest, so I dug a little bit deeper and before I knew it I had dug my way to China finding out everything I could about Genius Hour and how to make it work in my classroom next year.  It sounded so AMAZING!  There are so many resources out there and great ideas that I couldn't wait to get my students on board with this idea.

Then I had to take a few steps back and remind myself it was only the beginning of July.  After I calmed myself down about it, I realized that this type of an idea might be something that I needed to run by my administration before I decided to take one day a week to let my students do whatever they wanted....Genius Hour Explanation....in case you are wondering what I am talking about.  I spent some time planning out how I would fit this in to my schedule, what Common Core Standards my students would be meeting throughout the project, and logistics of how this would work in my classroom. I presented this idea to my building principal and he told me to go for it.

I introduced the idea to my students in the first 2 weeks of school.  Their gears started turning about what they would do with an hour (technically about 50 minutes) each week if they could work on whatever they wanted, and before I knew it, we were 3/4 of the way through the first semester and finishing up projects and getting ready for final presentations!  In another post I will outline exactly how I have implemented Genius Hour and give all those great "teacher details" that took me the longest time to work out.  For now, I want to share a few ideas my students have been working on:

Tearing apart old computers and building a sculpture.
Building a remote control car (from a kit)
Making pottery
Creating a website
Making a YouTube Channel (a few are doing this with different focuses: baking, gaming, fashion)
Building a dock for their family's pond
Building PVC goal posts for football games at home (this turned into a model on the 3-D printer due to time, weather, and expense, but he still has hopes of getting them built before summer)
Making a video game
Building a model of the solar system
Building a model of a bridge out of toothpicks
And MANY more!

Building volcanoes out of clay which they will erupt with baking soda and vinegar.

Tearing apart an old computer to build a model farm.

Browsing Pinterest for Baking ideas.

Tearing apart a computer to make a sculpture of a person.

Working in the shop cutting boards for birdhouses.

The MANY part is where the title of this post came from.  In retrospect, I wish I would have started a little smaller and not had all 100+ of my students (5th and 6th grades) do this project.  It's a lot to keep track of and manage, but I do have to say, they are motivated and interested, and as much as they do not like the idea of giving a public presentation, the fact that they are presenting on something they are passionate about makes a big difference!