ThirdGradeFun

Wow! Another great course has come to an end. As I thnk back to all the coursework and discussion that were shared in class, I'm reminded of how fortunate I am to have shared it will all of you. I'm always amazed at how much I can learn from our group discussions.  The resources shared in this class were wonderful. I must be honest, there were some ideas that I wasn't sure if I agreed with or that I thought were things I could try in my own classroom. However, after reading the article, Turn Your Classroom into a Personalized Learning Environment , I thought, why not! The hardest thing for me to do with some of these ideas is to let go of the control in my room and handing it over to my students. So I decided to let loose a bit and give some of these ideas a try. I have to say that giving my students some personal learning time has been a joy. The are so into their research and creating a project, this is the most quiet time of the day in my class!  At the beginning o...

As part of continuing to learn as an educator, I remembered a few ideas from my previous class that I knew I wanted to try with my current students. I am grateful to have a small classroom of 20 students. This year's group is a good group and for the most part are eager to learn. They are also very inquisitive and competitve. I wanted them to see some form of their evolution in third grade. Here I thought I was going to have them create a learning portfolio, This type of portfolio would show how they have grown as readers, writers, mathematicians, etc. However after reading the article My Digital Portfolio Project Planning , I realized that because I didn't keep up with the process of showing growth, what I really had was more of a showcase digital portfolio. What this process doesn't show is that although I had good intentions of creating a learning portfolio, when the students went back to update their portfolio, they realized things they wanted to improve, made changes...

After having experienced Genius Hour for myself and having loved it, I figured I would let my students give it a try. I gave them the all the same tools I was given. They took it and rolled with it! We tried this in science class and it came about because the students had questions after our unit on animal and plant life cycles. So I figured I let go (just a little) of the control in the classroom and give them 35 minutes to venture off and explore their curiosity. Here is an example of one student. He is an ELL student that struggles with reading and writing but I admired how much time and deication he put into this project. To see more examples check them out on our Padlet page  here .

Genius Hour What is Genius Hour? After reading two different articles, How to Use Genius Hour  by Angela Watson and Implementing Genius Hour In Your Classroom from the Minds in Bloom blog, it seems that Genius Hour is time given to students to research something they want to learn about based on interest.  This can also be known as 20% time. Students are given time to create, invent things, do research based on their interest, and they can even make short videos. Sounds great, don't you think? Genius Hour - Yay or Nay  As an adult, I truly enjoyed Genius Hour. I honestly think my students would also enjoy Genius Hour. The only thing that holds me back from wanting to try this is time . I feel like every minute of the day is already taken up by some kind of teaching. I thought, what if this were an after school program? Does this defeat the purpose of Genius Hour (traditionally done in the classroom)?  I do think this would be a great opportunity for my student...