Last week, we began Genius Hour with the Grade 6 boys. Each boy brainstormed areas of interest to him, so this week is all about exploring possibilities. We set up six stations around the library for the boys to experiment, tinker, and explore – all in the name of more fully developing interesting ideas and points of curiosity.
The stations were:
- a microscope and slides of onion, leaves, and salt crystals
- K’nex sets for building structures and vehicles
- Snap Circuit kits for creating electric circuits
- Scratch, a coding tutorial from M.I.T.
- Instructables, a site with thousands of DIY tutorials
- Encycopedia Britannica, one of our favourite online resources for research
Each boy had to choose two stations to try out for the period: not surprisingly, the boys naturally gravitated towards the circuits and K’nex, but a number of them also had a good time trying out coding on Scratch or reading about the discovery of water on Mars on Britannica.
There are a few students who have pretty clear ideas of where their Genius Hour projects will take them, and next week those students can start to plan out their projects more fully. The rest of the students will have time to explore and experiment more as they refine their questions.
Curious [St.] George 