Genius Hour is on!

Today was an exciting day at the Shepard classrooms. I got to come out and launch our Genius Hour project. This project is probably the thing I'm looking forward to the most this year. If you aren't familiar with Genius Hour, check out the site I created to house our resources: CPS Genius Hour. 

I think the best part about coming out to the classrooms now is that they all seem so excited to see me. I imagine that's how grandparents feel. So for today, I walked them through a couple of things. First, we all experienced a Kid President pep talk. If you haven't seen it yet, you should check it out. I wasn't sure how it would translate to third graders, but I think they understood quite a bit. After the pep talk, I asked what the Kid President's message was. They offered great ideas like "never give up", "you're in charge", and "we are all on the same team". And it's a funny video, so that always scores points. 

Second, I went through a Haiku Deck presentation I made to highlight the goals of Genius Hour. It was really fun and easy to make. The students really loved the pictures, and because you can't put much text on the slides, the message was very clear. Basically, we are going with four rules of Genius Hour:

1. The project must be approved by your teacher
2. You must research your question
3. Create a passion project to show your learning
4. Present and share your project to others

By the time we were finished, you could feel the excitement in the room. We could tell that most of the students already had ideas in mind for their first projects. Several asked whether they could make slideshows or videos. Yes and yes. Some wondered how many projects they could do. As many as you want. 

The next step is to start coming up with questions and wonderings. Mrs. Heath and Mrs. Guillory have their boards up and ready to receive responses. I look forward to coming back next week to see what they have put up there. If this first meeting is any indication, I think it's going to be a great year.