Genius Hour, First Grade

When I first started to hear about Genius Hour in the fall of ‘13, I immediately wanted to know more. Let the kids create, question and learn and do on their own? I’m in.

1st and 4th graders gathered to hear about the bridge
that failed. It was a great dam, bad bridge.

I have always been a huge fan of choice time and firmly believe in the lost art of ‘letting children play’. However, I was noticing that our choice time was getting competitive. “He has more lego people than I do” or “I wanted to play with the marble run!”. There were some victories, friends made and some much needed unwinding for my students.  It was also a very social, which was great, but I wanted more. Being ever curious about how I might be able to get more from a school day, create a more autonomous learning environment for my students, encourage creativity and collaboration it became clear - Genius Hour.

Searching twitter (#geniushour) I found @joykirr, then her LiveBinder, drifting further down the bunny hole, I started connecting previous ideas from Google (20% time), Daniel Pink, Ken Robinson and IDEO. For teachers reading this, the first three connections stated are probably known entities. But IDEO? A cutting edge design firm located in the Bay Area founded by David Kelley, IDEO became famous for bringing design thinking into all avenues of life. How might a shopping cart be better? “How might we” questions became the trendy in and around SF and the greater Bay Area. I read Change By Design a few years back and absolutely loved it, thinking the whole time, how I might be able to do this in my classroom? How might I encourage creativity (Sir Ken), create learning autonomy (Mr. Pink), and manage 21 six year-olds (me)?

Unstable boxes meets stability.

Fast forward to November ‘13 and I jumped into Genius Hour with both feet. The first try was clunky on my end, trying to intervene little at times, then too much at other times. My efforts, both good and bad, didn’t seem to hamper the kids efforts as they created oceanscapes, explored a planter searching for bugs, created lego creatures, created a slideshow telling all about different ships, choreographed a dance to Firework and wrote, sang and performed a rap song. Deliverables were delivered and presented. The presentations were shy and quiet. Some natural speakers were found, others were emerging from their shells. Process was the king/queen of the day. Truthfully, I wasn’t concerned about the quality of the deliverable. So long as the process was collaborative, positive, driven by personal curiosity and enjoyable, I felt that the mission was accomlished. The room was buzzing with energy... “When can we do this again?” “Is it on the schedule today?” “I have an idea for next week!” became the language of the week. Kids were thinking about this before they left for the day, at morning meeting, during lunch and executing ideas during the Hour itself. I was hooked. They were hooked.

Getting Started

I won’t lie, this can get messy. It can get loud. Failure is often. Start with a thinking session. Kate Petty said to make a Bad Idea board full of ideas that aren’t really genius worthy. For instance, How deep is the SF Bay? In .56 seconds, Google told me that it was 360 ft deep under the Golden Gate. Instead, what about Shark species of the SF Bay, or How is the depth determined, or Why isn’t the SF Bay deeper?? You might have to tell your students, No, but make sure to say why their current idea isn’t Genius Hour worthy, and perhaps offer a suggestion. The first few weeks, I let a lot slide, and I suggest you do the same (remember, first grade). 
Note: I didn’t make a bad idea board because I only heard about it a few months in.

Automatic fly swatter

Solid, liquid, gas demo

Give a Framework

Each week the children have to determine three things:

1. Who will be part of their team? Solo, two or three? Four is pushing it.

2. What will you be doing, learning, creating? There must be accountability. A week ago, three girls were going to choreograph a dragon dance. They announced it and the class was fired up! When they presented a 20 second skit about a restaurant, the children did all the talking. “Wait, where is the dragon dance?!” They were disappointed, and the three girls were embarrassed. We made a rule- if you say you’re going to do it, do it. If you’re going to change, tell the project manager, me.

3. How will you share out? Each group or child only has one minute (approx) to share out what they did, how it worked, what didn’t work etc. All eyes are on the presenters and the class acts proud and respectful. Thus far we are using Explain Everything for digital presentations, Doc Cam and live Demo’s to share out.

Could look something like this...

Who?	What?	How?

Use Big Words

Why not sneak in some content specific vocabulary? Stabilize, water-proof, attracted, iterate. Last week I tried to describe the term iterate with 21 six year-olds. I got this drawing.

Process of iteration in First Grade

What’s Come Up?

Genius Hour has broken language barriers, made friends from unlikely pairs and given me goosebumps at the way the children describe their work. No tears yet, but we have had at least a failure or two each hour. The kids are prepared for this, they know that as we fail, we answer the question- Why did this happen?  Then try again. The process of iterating continues.

What Do I Need?

Remember to be brave while doing this. The worst thing an educator can do is NOT try this out. It might be bad, but it’s a start. Develop some possible ideas with the kids, keep these ideas and grow a list. I encourage the kids to redo past projects in order to improve them, learn more from them, or redo a presentation that went haywire. Collect boxes, TP rolls, blocks and other random stuff to help the kids create. They are also writing lists of things they might want in order to get future projects done. This list will live on our class website for all to see and donate.

A Note of Caution
This is not a 'sit back and watch' kind of thing. The teacher is the project manager. It is very important to be a sounding board to the kids, ask them questions that make them really think deeply and have conversations with their team, let doubt creep in, let excitement creep in, help them make connections and increase inspiration. 

Genius Hour for First Grade. Give it a whirl, let me know what you think, how it went and what victories your kids experienced.