Genius Hour Launch

We started Genius Hour this year (a 2^nd and 4^th grade partnership) and decided to do a big launch in our performing arts center.  It was a hoot!  We decided to dress like Einstein and made these fun hats. 

Each student wrote about his or her high interest areas.  We asked our Principal and our Superintendent to do the same and they shared their ideas at our launch.

 We are committing one hour each Friday to allow students to spend time in their area of interest.  For our first round of this, we decided we would do 4 weeks of “knowledge” where students research and zoom into an idea.  Followed by four weeks of project development and then four weeks to work on some type of overview presentation. 

It is just astonishing to hear the ideas students are coming up with.  To hear a second grader say they would like to contact Maserati and see if he could get some information on their motors, another student wanting to know more about solar cars, one students wants to figure out how to make a foam case for her iPad, other students researching animals, a group of students exploring and designing on Tinkercad, some doing programming for gaming, one girl designing a simple motor …just to name a few…WOW!!  Amazing! 

Stay tuned....we will be sharing what we are learning through this process...

This second grade student is designing a robot to build car parts and has partnered with this fourth grader because she is making a small motor and thinks he can help her make them with the robot.  

 He's exploring the app Robot Factory to get ready to think about how to build a robot factory...

 Using Tinkercad