Genius Hour and a Couple of Notes
Before I get into the amazing new journey we are doing called Genius Hour, I wanted to make mention of a couple of things.
First, despite the cold weather, students are still expected to go outside. Please make sure that students are dressed appropriately for the cold temperatures. They should be bringing gloves, hats that cover the ears, warm jackets and scarves. Even though it is cold, the days are beautifully sunny and students need a chance to get out into the fresh air and run off some of their energy. In the event that the temperatures with wind make it below -10, Ms. Evans and I will determine whether it call for an inside recess. However, students are still outside before and after school and should be coming to school dressed ready for the cold.
Because of the cold temperatures, however, we will not be having a full dress day as we usually do on Wednesdays. Students can instead wear pants and regular uniforms.
As you may have, no doubt, already heard, the students in Grades 4 and the students in Mrs. Derksen/Mrs. Goosen’s class embarked on a new, incredible journey called Genius Hour. You should have received a letter home on Monday following the kick-off assembly we had. At the assembly students got to see what Genius Hour is from other students who have done Genius Hour, they got to hear about what it means to be creative, passionate and excited about learning something new and they got a chance to think about what they might do if they actually had to time to learn something that they are actually interested in learning about.
We talked about how so often schools tell them what they want to learn and how we want to give them an opportunity to create something that is awesome. We started off by watching this video:
Then we showed them this clip about a school in Surrey that has also taken on Genius Hour!
We then laid out some of the basic points on how this is going to work in the classroom including how they will not be marked for the actual product but will be marked for the process. The main thing we want to encapsulate is that we want this time to be more than just about marks. We want it to be a time to take risks, to learn something new, to be passionate about something, to
… do awesome, live awesome and be awesome.
Students will also be sharing their projects with other students and possibly school staff and church staff in the same sort of format as TEDtalks like these ones by other kids!
We hope that it will be an exciting time. During this week, we will be exploring ideas, thoughts, questions and other things to begin helping students develop their project ideas.