For this being the first year that I have ever done Genius Hour, I really am impressed with how well my students did with it. We had a few kinks to work out on their end as well as mine, but I feel like we are more ready than ever to get things rolling again. Some of my students were already asking me about when we were starting Genius Hour again the SAME DAY we gave our Final Presentations back in December. They already had ideas rolling around for what they thought they wanted to do before the ink had even dried on their rubrics from the first one! Now, I didn't give them much to go off of except I told them we would indeed be doing a Genius Hour project for the 2nd semester and that it would be "slightly" different this time. I loved that the suspense was killing them all over winter break!
So, what surprises did I spring on them today? First, I said they had the option of working in a group of 2-3 students for the project. That was almost enough to put them over the edge with excitement on its own.
After they took a minute or two to exchange glances around the classroom and give each other "the look" that meant they wanted to work together on this project, I hit them with change number two. This was the big one! I told them all I still wanted to make sure they picked a project they were passionate about, something they were interested in and cared about, BUT it had to be Service Learning based. From there I got a bunch of blank stares....
I did anticipate having to explain what service learning is to most of them, and I think by the time I had explained it and given a few examples, they really did understand what I was asking of them. I think. We work on Genius Hour one day each week. It is always the day (usually Wednesday) that we get out early which makes our class periods just under an hour long. That in itself doesn't sound like too much, but when I do this with two sections of 6th grade and two sections of 5th grade, it gets to be a longer "short" day than a regular day is.
My biggest take-away from our day today was the fact that after they understood, my students really did get right down to business and started making plans. Here are some of the project ideas we have floating around in our classes right now:
- Volunteer at the animal shelter.
- Make bracelets with charms to sell to raise money for Autism (student has a cousin who is autistic).
- Make blankets to donate to the children's hospital.
- Create a video game to help students learn multiplication facts.
- Have a bake sale to raise money for Ebola research.
- Spend one class period a week going to read books with the preschoolers.
- Help teach the first graders how to code. (We use code.org)
- Create our school's own "Play it Again Sports" type store to share sporting equipment or gear.
- Plant trees and other landscaping around our campus.
- Go to play cards and games with residents at the nursing home.
- Volunteer to play games with a small group of kindergarten students once a week at the after school program.
- Be a "Lunch Buddy" with a child from the Day Care.
Over the course of the day it seemed like their ideas just kept getting bigger and better. I can't wait to see what they have come up with by the time their decision needs to be made next week on Wednesday. I will for sure be coming back with more posts about where our Genius Hour with a twist of Humanity takes us over the course of the next couple of months. It's sure to be a great one!
