Blog
September 2017
This year has started off fast and furious. We are getting a new broadcast system ready to debut, but in the meantime we are changing a bunch of things behind the scenes. We have made our morning news available for the community to watch and we are training the students to do almost all of the jobs themselves. We want this to really be a student run news program and so far it is turning out great. They have been writing the scripts and our anchors are enthusiastic and full of joy. The director has taken to her role is running the show. It is great to see these kids step up and take responsibility for all the different parts of broadcast and for them to have a say in how it goes. So... stay tuned for more updates.
January 2017
Mrs. Deanda and Ms. Kirchner, 4th grade teachers at Deep Wood, started Genius Hour here. The rest of the school wanted in on it and I asked them if I could take it over to allow some of the other grades to participate as well. I was grateful for many reasons that Mrs. Barr, our librarian, said that she would like to collaborate because she has an in depth knowledge for research resources.
We decided to do Makerspace with Kindergarten and 1st grade and Genius Hour with 2nd through 5th.
Genius Hour is a movement that allows students to explore their own passions and encourages creativity in the classroom. It provides students a choice in what they learn during a set period of time during school.
Makerspace is a place where students can gather to create, invent, tinker, explore and discover using a variety of tools and materials.
In January our Kinder and 1st grade Makerspace kiddos took our Lego challenge and made an apple out of legos during the first week. The second week they played with coding on Kodable with the iPads.
Genius Hour kicked off and we have started off strong, below are examples of the questions that are still being worked on and we are still waiting to see our first round of kiddos complete their research.
December 2016
Day 1 (December 5): 9 fifth graders are taking on a global design challenge to design and build a model school for people who colonize MARS. Today we took a look at Mars and did a little research on the planet. The question that we answered today was: Where will this school be located on MARS? Some students were looking for a “flat area near water”, is there water on Mars? Some students got really specific and found an exact location on the planet: “Syrtis Major”, “near Amazonis Planitia not the Acate place”.
Day 2 (December 6): 5th graders came up with questions they will try to answer tomorrow. One of the questions, “How will we breathe?” Other questions ranged from how big the school is, and what the gravity is like, do they have access to water. #MARSchallenge #dinostech
Day 3 – 5 (December 7 – 9): Both teams worked hard on what their school was going to look like, by drawing sketches and starting to build with Cardboard, Construction Paper, Duct Tape, Glue and Straws.
Day 6 – 9 (December 12 – 15): Both teams continued working on their projects and figuring out what their schools needed to survive and thrive on Mars. On Thursday, they recorded their videos, they were interviewed by RRISD Associate Director of Communications and Community Relations. We should be seeing it up on the district website soon!
Check out the final videos of the students Mars Challenge on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5iXnDlYoRdkCTWJEQ8UuuG-tVuO_2IHo
Although the Teams from our school did not win, they had some really awesome ideas and created some cool products in only 9 days! Great job Team Hathaway and Team Doyle!