To Do List....Genius Hour...Check!

     Our Open House was last Wednesday and the kids got to showcase their #GeniusHour learning.  I had a fantastic turn out of parents who showed up to support their child.  Not only did we have parents, we had grandparents, aunts, uncles and people who wanted to see what all the commotion was stop by and listen to my kids present on their Genius Hour projects.  I am so proud of the work my kids did.  

     I have the pleasure of presenting my experience of Genius Hour to my 2nd and 3rd grade teachers on Tuesday.  The plan is to have a whole grade level participate in Genius Hour next year.  It was opened up to grades K-6 and I am really hoping my 2nd or 3rd grade teachers decide to do it.  I really want to support them next year.  On Thursday I get to present it to the School Board.  I hope they are as inspired as I am.

     I just want to say a HUGE thank you to +Rae Fearing and +Charlene Knowlton.  Without them to calm me down and reassure me I don't think it would have been as big a success as it was.  So thank you ladies, and I look forward to working with you next year to calm someone else down!

We are very busy...

     #GeniusHour is amazing! My kids have been doing some incredible learning.  They have been meeting with lots of people from our community.  I have to say, Crescent City has some welcoming and helpful people in it.  I am very grateful to many people this week.  First off, Northwoods welcomed to of my boys, Luis and Westyn, into their kitchen to let them see what being a chef was like.  Chef Frank was so gracious with them, they got to make pasta, tour the kitchen and interview him.  Dr. Caldwell made time to meet with one of my girls. She wants to become a doctor.  Dr. Caldwell met with Judith and she got to interview him and tour his office.
     Our goal last week was to revisit our Essential Questions.  It was important to me to remind the kids what they were researching and to go back to the whole point of Genius Hour.   They also looked at each other's questions and made comments or asked more questions.  It was powerful to them, I could tell they really thought about what they asked each other.

Essential Questions #GeniusHour

Our First Blog Post

We are winding down our first official week of Genius Hour.  One of the requirements is to do a blog post every week about what they worked on for their project.  Here is the link to our Kid Blog.  Check out what they are doing.

We have made several connections in the community for interviews and mini field trips and everyone has been gracious and helped us out.  I am so excited for these kids.  I really wish I could go on a field trip too.  I hope they know how special this is.

Please check out their blogs posts!  They would LOVE it if someone besides their classmates and their teacher comment on their posts.

5 Things We Have To Stop Pretending

+Rae Fearing challenged me to come up with ways to #MakeSchoolDifferent.

Here are my 5 things we have to stop pretending in education.

1. Teachers can do everything on their own.
This probably has more to do with the teacher themselves, but I know that I want to do everything on my own.  But I can't and I need help, not just someone to make copies for me, but to help me learn and grow as a teacher.  I'm almost 5 years into this profession and I am STILL trying to figure everything out.  I don't believe teachers who have been teaching for 20 or more years have it figured out.  

2.  If teachers attend Professional Development they will take it back into the classroom and use it right away.
I'll be honest, I have attended a lot of professional development, but I haven't used half of what I have learned.  Like my kids, I need to be shown how to do things.  If I get to participate and really understand what is being taught there is a greater likelihood I will take what I learned back to my classroom.  But there also needs to be a follow-up to see if I need any assistance.  What I think will be great about my PLC Coaching job is that I get to be the one to follow-up and help out.  It's one thing to expect a teacher to implement something without support, it's another to provide that support.

3. Your text book will cover all your standards.
Now that we are moving towards the Common Core, our text books are not the end all be all.  There are many standards you will have to go elsewhere to find and cover.  I would love a magical book that has everything I need, but it's not out there and teachers need to realize that.

4. Just because I don't know anything about technology, doesn't mean my kids don't either.
I have jumped on the technology bandwagon and ran with it.  I have been trying so many things lately that I didn't even know existed.  Some of them I liked myself and others I didn't care for.  But all of them my kids loved!  I understand there are teachers who don't know how to use technology, but these kids do!  It's hard to not be in total control of a situation, but it's good for you and it makes you learn new things.

5. You have to do the same thing all day, everyday. 
I realize kids need consistency, I am a HUGE advocate for it.  But education is changing everyday and you as a teacher need to change with it.  There are so many different things kids can be doing to show their understanding, engaging and fun things!

This was really hard for me to come up with.  I know I'm learning all the time to be a better teacher for my kids.  I feel like they have gotten a variety of educational experiences this year.  There is always room to grow and get better!

Oh...the Possibilities!!

I can't tell you how exciting it was today in my classroom!  My kids are starting to pick their Passion Projects for Genius Hour.  For the last 5 school days, I have been giving them a question to answer/finish on a little piece of paper.  Then I would post them under their name.  These were the sentences I had them finish to help them think of ideas for their Passion Project.

1. I wonder...
2. I would like to learn how to...
3. If I could have any job in the world it would be...
4. The one thing this world needs is...
5. If I could visit anywhere it would be...

And here is what my wall looked like when we finished our questions.  They really thought about their answers, but I think they loved listening to what the other kids wrote.  I had forgot to read them one day, and I got so many questions as to WHEN I'm going to read them.  

+Rae Fearing and +Charlene Knowlton came out today to help my kids think through their Passion Project ideas.  We have some wonderful projects in the works.  Their goal today was to pick a Passion Project and think of an essential question to drive their research.  This was a hard task for some.  They have so many ideas and to narrow their question down was hard for some of them.  Once they picked their project and wrote an essential question they wrote it down on construction paper and I posted it on the wall in our classroom.  The point of this was to think about their question and refer back to it.  They can ask each other questions and I will put them up on the wall too.  Just so they can see what other people are thinking and wondering about their projects.

If you don't know me...I'm a bit of a control freak, so this project is going to test me as a teacher.  I am going to let the learning happen and see where this takes us.  I know they will learn so much once this is over, but I just have to trust them...and breathe.  Let the learning commence!

Talking to an author is ...SO COOL!

My 4th graders are so lucky!  We got to do a Google Hangout with author J.B. Cantwell today.  Jen has written a series of books called Aster Wood.  They are about a sick boy who has adventures and travels to far off places.  As a teacher what I found so interesting is that she talked about the writing process she goes through with each of her novels.  4th graders go through the writing process too, but for some reason they think they are "finished" with a story without making any changes to it. :-)  Jen explained how she sends her drafts into her editor and they send back notes on how she needs to improve her story.  I could go on and on how much I learned today talking to Jen.  I was so inspired by her!  I hope my kids were too.  They asked her some great questions and she was gracious enough to answer all of them.  Please visit her website at J.B. Cantwell. Thank you +Jen Cantwell  for talking to my kids!

Planting a Seed

Today I planted a seed, I don't have a garden, but I do have 4th graders and they can be similar.  The seed I planted was Genius Hour.  My kids this year are yearning for knowledge, they want to know more.  Way more knowledge than I can provide.  I have been interested in Project Based Learning and this is a great way to try it out.  For the next week, we will be thinking about what kinds of things they want to explore.  If you asked any adult what they would spend 20% of their time on each week you would get all kinds of answers.  I can't wait to see what they come up with!  I will keep you posted.  I am looking forward to this new adventure with my kids as the school year comes to an end.