On the last day of term (yesterday) we had our first ‘creative maker’ session.

We’ve been discussing Genius Hour sessions – what they are, how they can look, how to plan for using your time effectively, where to get your ideas, what materials you might need….it’s been a fantastic discussion within our class.

We discussed things that we LOVE and ideas we’d be really keen to investigate further next term.

This is a new idea for our Year 2 students but we’re lucky because Miss Sporn, our teacher, ran Genius Hour sessions with her Year 2/3 class last year.

We’ve watched Caine’s Arcade clips via YouTube- he’s been a great inspiration.

We’ve looked at ideas on Pinterest – it gave us lots of ideas and taught us how to search for ideas we’re interested in.

For our first session Miss Sporn created the ‘paper bag challenge’. Everyone was given similar items and we  were challenged to create ‘something’ with it.

Some of the items were:

• a paper bag
• pipe cleaners
• feathers
• string
• a cork or two
• a cup
• patty pans
• match sticks
• pop sticks

We needed to use most of the items and could recycle our unused materials into tubs in the middle of the room – we could add or take items from these tubs.

We could use textas, recycled paper, low melt glue guns, cardboard, etc as needed.

We had lots of interesting and different creations – it was really interesting to see how each of our students thought about their ideas, started their making, made changes and then finally finished their creations.

Checkout our entire session via our slideshow.

What do you like to create during Genius Hour?

What would you like to try next time?