I am so sad. Today is the last day of my Spring
Break. Where did the week go?? I am trying to find the strength to
face the final 10 weeks of the year! Woohoo! The end is in sight!
(I'm trying to psych myself up. Not sure it's working...)
Anyway, in my last post I had some great ideas to start
tackling my to do list. But sadly, I did not do so well on implementing
them. I loved the weekly reflection sheet that I came up with and I think
my students did too. So, I will continue to use that. Now, I need
to get those data tracking folders up and running. Maybe that will happen
this week...
But I also have more ideas that I want to try to
implement. The one that sounds kind of fun and somewhat ties in with
several ideas on my to do list (differentiation, motivation, improving class
culture and being more Montessori?) is to start a "Genius Hour."
I'm still thinking through the details, but I love the
ideas on this blog post: http://www.rundesroom.com/2013/11/passion-projects-in-classroom.html.
I'm thinking I will do this on Wednesdays. That way students can
use their library time in the morning to get books if needed for the afternoon
work time.
So, for day 1 of Genius Hour, I am thinking it will look
like this:
Show these videos as an intro:
Talk about finding our passion or topics for our
Genius Hour projects. Then give students time to think and jot down
ideas. I will project some questions to think about on our smart board
such as: what do you like to do in your free time? what are you
good at?
**Students can jot these ideas on the Genius Hour
worksheet.
Once they have some possible topics, students
will need to brainstorm some more. They will need to think about how they
can turn their passion into a project.
They need to think about what questions they could research and how they
could present this info.
**Students can continue to jot these on their
worksheet.
After everyone has had some time to think, we
will share with partners or in small groups. I don't think this is
necessary, except I have such a chatty class that I think this will help them
hold on a little longer.
If we have time, we will go back to brainstorming
and fine-tuning our ideas. By next Wednesday, students will need to have
some possible project ideas.
Next week we will work on selecting a guiding
question or two and begin the actual research.
Hoping this plan works!
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