Genius Hour / Wonder Bubbles

I love the idea of genius hour. Read more about the topic here. In my classroom so far, we have done a "mini" genius hour. I will open it up to a bigger project later on in the school year.

Our mini hour was perfect for my young first graders. We were finishing our science unit on the structure and function of plants and animals. I planned three days for us to explore on our own and finish the unit by researching what each student was interested in. I did give guidelines, which goes a bit against the idea of genius hour, however there was a lot of choice involved. I asked the students to either...
*Compare and contrast offspring to parents. Support comparisons with evidence from offsprings.
*Analyze a media clip or illustrations in text to determine animal behaviors. Support with evidence how this helps the animal to survive.

Before we began our three days, we wrote our wonders on our class wonder bubbles. We keep these bubbles up year-round and erase as our wonders change. It is a great way for us to start thinking about what we would like to research.

Teachers - click to be taken to my wonder bubbles! 

I left the choice of animal and how they wanted to present their information up to each student. I was impressed with what they came up with. Most students chose to create something on the Book Creator app. Below are some pictures from our days and examples!

All in all our first genius hour was a success. Can not wait to do more in the future with this class!

PSST!! Want to learn EVEN MORE ways to easily implement iPads in your classroom?! Just click here (or the picture below) to sign up for my FREE five day email course! I will walk you through everything I've done to easily implement iPads in my own classroom!