In my never-ending quest to refine Genius Hour for my students and make it meaningful, I have created a few new digital resources that I intend to use this year with my 3rd-5th grade students. We will be using Google Classroom, so I decided to design some Google Slides presentations that the students can use for … Read more
TED Ed Clubs are one way to encourage students to speak about their passions. In a recent e-mail from TED Ed that was chock full of resources, there was a reference to some video guides that are posted on YouTube to help speakers refine their presentations. You don’t need to be in a TED Ed … Read more
The Genius Hour pages on this site seem to be getting a lot of views lately, which is good to see. As teachers prepare for a new school year, I am hopeful that more Genius Hours will be incorporated into curriculums around the world. Since I have been doing Genius Hour for several years, I … Read more
Mrs. Lasher’s incredible 5th grade GT students are currently hosting a “pop-up” museum at their school. Inspired by San Antonio’s new hands-on children’s museum, the DoSeum, the students designed their very own interactive exhibits, and invited select guests to visit. Here is the invitation they designed. The L.E.A.D. (Learn, Explore, And Discover) DoSeum consists of three rooms: … Read more
My 5th graders are polishing up their Genius Hour presentations, and one of the students was trying to incorporate a poll into his presentation. He was just going to switch windows in the browser during his presentation, but I was sure there must be a way to actually embed one into Slides. We did some … Read more
While searching for a TED talk for my 5th graders last week, I came across one that I hadn’t seen before. It was given by Beau Lotto, a neuroscientist, and Amy O’Toole, a 12-year-old published scientist. Beau and Amy tell the story of a class of 8 and 9 year-olds and their serious scientific research into … Read more