Genius Hour

I know what you're thinking, this was a "thing" a few years ago, but as I revealed recently, I am not an early adopter!  I have been wanting to try Genius Hour for about 5 years and actually approached a colleague to get his class involved.  He said no.  I was teaching grade 2 at the time, and needed support with tech and just extra people.  I thought it would be a great opportunity for grade 7's to get involved with younger students, but the teacher said no.  This time, I really tried to sell it, offering to do all the planning and setup as well as the training of his class.  His friend advised against it and so I was sunk before I started. 

So now, because of new curriculum and the buzz about project based learning, I'm going to try again.  I have been reading some blogs and other resources that I have found online.  My principal is really excited about the idea and other staff actually seem interested.  So this coming school year I'm going to start Genius Hour or something along those lines.  Project based learning where the focus is really what ever the student wants to learn about.  I don't know all the particulars yet, but I am working on it.  I think this will just have to be one of those things that I just jump into and try it out. 

So far, this is what I have planned:
-Introduce PBL at the beginning of the year to parents and students. 
-Do a learning project on a topic as a class, something like dogs or cats, and teach them different ways to show their learning.  A practice run.
-Get others involved, parents, older students other staff.
-Start in November(?) with the practice and then January(?) with the project they do themselves.

I still have to look at organization, what I want to teach them during the practice and a few other details.  That's what August is for!

Flex Seating #3- What I learned

So what did I learn from this whole experience?  A lot!

The kids transitioned really well from my desk groups to the flex seating options.  There were of course, some items that were highly sought after, but mostly they solved the issues themselves.  One of the options, the wiggle stool, was something that many kids wanted to use.  I am going to work on getting more of those next year. 

Surprisingly, the bench-as-a-desk was very popular!  I thought that would be the one left out, but nope!  The kids in this class loved sitting on the floor.  At any given time, there were 4 or 5 on the carpet with clipboards, sitting on cushions at the bench and the kneeling at desks was really popular too.  I may lower another set of desks so that more of them can kneel.  I am also going to add some lap desks for kids that don't want to lay on the carpet have another option.

The exercise balls were popular, but I'm not sure for the right reasons. This was one space where I had to monitor more often.  It was very usual to have students bouncing on them, or rolling around on them, neither very conducive to good working time, especially when they are calling out "look at this!"  Was this because they didn't have enough time with them?  I guess we'll see next year. 

I have a list of things that I want to add for next year too.  I would like more wiggle stools, a couple more bath mats and some lap desks.  I am looking at these  from Ikea.  I have one at home and it's great.  I'm thinking about a yoga mat or two, but we'll see.

I also have to work on some organizational things for next year.  I had to move some things around and I have to look at where things need to be and what needs to go.  As a primary teacher, I have different centers I take out at different times of the year and as the need arises.  I can't keep them all in my room anymore, because my room just doesn't have the storage that I had at my old school.

So overall, I'm glad that I went ahead with the experiment.  The kids liked it and so did I.  It pulled me out of a system that I'd been using for about 4 years (and it worked) and made me rethink some things.  I like that. 

Flex Seating #2

So the students walked in on Monday morning and oohed and ahhed over everything.  I had talked to them about it the Friday before, but as little kids have a hard time remembering the recent past, they were still really surprised.  Some of the comments I heard were "It's so cool!"  "It feels so relaxing in here" "There's so much space!"  and lots of other positive stuff.  I was thrilled!  I let them explore for a few minutes and then I called a class meeting.  We talked about expectations and I ran through all the different options that they had to do work.  Moving around the classroom is not a problem for my kids, as I do a lot of center work and they know what to do and how to act during these times. 

When we moved to work spaces, it went much more smoothly that I imagined it would.  They quickly chose a spot and there was no arguing.  I had made it clear that everyone would get to try everything over the next couple of days.  Through the day I kept track of where people were and tried to make sure that they moved through all the options.  For the most part, it worked.  After the initial trial I didn't worry about it, as they moved themselves around easily and I only had to intervene with a couple of kiddos. 

Here's what it looked like in action:

In my next post, I'll talk about what I learned from the whole experience.

Flexible Seating #1

A couple of years ago, I read about flexible seating.  I thought it was very interesting and tried to imagine it in a primary classroom.  Most of the examples I was reading about were in high school settings and they looked amazing!  Couches, lamps and coffee tables; it looked like a living room.  Other examples I saw had wide open spaces and different table configurations.  For a while I thought about it, and then put it away.  No one I knew was doing it, no one knew what I was talking about and I lost interest, honestly.  It seemed unattainable and with the class I had at the time, there was no way I could introduce something like that and stay sane. 

Fast forward to 2016, and now flex seating is everywhere!  People in my district are muttering about it and some teachers are actually trying it in elementary schools!  My interest was reignited and I started to think about the changes I could make in my own class.  I had watched my friend Angela Gatt, from Fun in Fourth, do the switch at Spring Break and decided I would jump in.  It was June.  Many people thought I was crazy to try something at the end of the school year.  I thought I was crazy to start something like this at the end of the year, but when I sat down and really thought about it, I had many good reasons to do it.

1.  No time like the present- I'd already waited for so long, and really you don't know what will work until you do it.
2.  The kids were already antsy anyway, giving them something to concentrate on other than the calendar would be a good thing.
3.  The kids know that routines, know where everything is and were able to adapt to small changes in routing with ease.
4.  I was excited about it.

So one Sunday morning, I called Ang and I went to Walmart.  I had a cart filled with stuff and met her at my school.  I knew what I wanted to do, but I wanted her opinion and experience to back me up.  I didn't leave the school until after 5 that day, but when I did, I was energized.
Here's what it looked like:

-I kept two table groups of 4 just as they were
-I took the extension legs right out of the tables in one group
the brown table has exercise balls to sit on
-4 desks were by themselves
-4 desks were in the hall
-I scrounged a bench from the gym and had cushions on the floor for them to sit on and use the bench as a writing surface.
-1 group of desks were raised as high as they could go for a standing option.

So for options I had:
-1 wiggle stool
-kneeling
-sitting on cushions
-standing
-laying on the carpet with clip boards
-regular desks and chairs
-desks in the hall

The reactions of the kids on Monday morning was awesome!  They walked around looking at everything and loved it!

Blog Resurrection

It's been a very long time since I used this space, but it's been a very long time since I've had the energy or want to use it too.

Things have changed since I've posted last:
- I had the most challenging class I've ever had
- there was a strike
- I moved schools
- I taught grade one
- I taught a split 1 and 2
- new curriculum was introduced
- I have tried flexible seating
- My application for an inquiry project was accepted.

So much has happened in the last 2 years, but I'm not going to recap that.  Exciting things are going to be happening this coming year and I feel refreshed and excited about teaching again.