Future Engineers in Training

Wonder Project

I love Genius Hour with my first graders and have done this for about 3 years. I call it Wonder Project time in my room. My first graders choose a topic they are interested in learning about. We talk about big questions that will require more than a yes or no answer. Once they have their guiding question, we move on to researching their topic. This can take 4-5 weeks since I only spend about an hour a week on this. As a final wrap-up, my students use the Engineering Design Process to create something they can share with the class.

What are Wonder Bags?

This year, I really wanted them to come up with some great questions without as much support from me. Some students had a hard time choosing their own wonder. I really didn't want to give ideas because I felt like that was taking away from the thing they were REALLY interested in.

LIGHT BULB MOMENT! Use Donor's Choose and lots of great donors to help me create a class set of Wonder Bags! I easily created a Donor's Choose project for the cloth bags, sets of markers, and books that would ignite wondering in my students. I named it Don't Let the Wondering Stop After School: Wonder Homework Bags! I found a great set of books that work great for wondering. Each book has questions and answers around a theme. There are a ton of different topics. I chose to add 20 so that I would have a Wonder Bag for each student.

How I Organized the Wonder Bags

This year, I have 20 students and I wanted each one to have a Wonder Bag each week. I had a few ideas on how to organize the bags. My first idea was to have a Wonder book, set of markers, post its, pencil and pens in each bag. Each student also has a Wonder Project journal to record what they are learning about. I decided to label each bag with a number (Wonder Bag #1,etc) and have the book stay each week. Then I put their journal, markers, pens/pencils and post its into a plastic bag. I send home a Wonder Bag on Monday to each student with the plastic bag of supplies. They keep them all week and bring them back to school on Fridays. On Fridays, I take out their plastic bag of supplies and record the number of the bag that they had that week on the top of their Wonder Journal. This way, I know quickly which Wonder Bag they have had already.

What is in the Wonder Journals?

The Wonder Journals include a parent letter explaining the bags and a number of pages to help them record what they are learning about. One page is just a questions page. Another page has a box for a drawing and lines to tell about what they drew and why. I also like to add some blank pages so they can have choice in how they record their thinking. Lastly, a page to write new vocabulary words they are learning.

How is it going?

The best thing about the Wonder Bags has been the excitement from my students! They come in most mornings telling me something they found out about in their Wonder Bag! Some students have completed all the pages in their Wonder Journals in just 3 weeks and others do just a page during the week. There are even some that may just look through the bag and not record anything. The nice thing is that families can do what is best for their schedule/child for that week. I have not lost any of the 20 bags that I have created. Sometimes, a few come back late, but no worries! I would say the white cloth bags that I chose because they were cheaper were not the best choice. I had students use fabric markers to decorate them a bit, but they are not staying very clean. Students are doing a nice job taking care of their set of markers and supplies because they know they will stay with them each week.

Connecting to Wonder Projects at School

My students had about 4-5 different Wonder Bags so far. Last week, we chose our Wonder Project topic for school. It was so easy for them to chose their guiding question and they came up with amazing things! I think it is because of all the wondering they have been doing with their Wonder Bags. Some of the questions from my students are:

How do your eyes work?
Why don't people live in Antarctica full time?
How is money made?
What are comets?
Why do some animals eat plants and some meat?

This has been a great way to keep my students wondering and has gotten them really excited about their Wonder Projects. I can't wait to see how their projects end.

Global SEE Summit 2017

And to think I was close to never applying for the SEE Global Summit! What a mistake that would have been! This year has been full of amazing ups and downs, but THIS was definitely one of the best weeks of the year for me! I had just received my SMART Interactive Flat Panel at the start of this school year from a teacher fellowship that I won last year. Due to budget shortfalls, I was the only teacher in my building with a SMART panel in my room and I was itching to know as much as I could about how to implement it most effectively with my students.

I spent the summer and the year going to trainings, watching webinars, hitting up people on Twitter and Facebook for ideas, and asking my fellow SEE's (SMART Exemplary Educators) for tips and tricks. I am lucky to have a SEE that is a technology integrator in my district. She has had my back from day 1! She is also the person that encouraged me to apply to become a SEE in the first place. I jumped on that right away in the fall after just using the SMART Learning Suite for a few months! Luckily in the spring, she told me about the SEE Global Summit in Calgary, Canada at SMART Headquarters. I immediately applied for that as well. Then I think I crossed my fingers every day until I found out I had been chosen to attend!

My hopes and expectations before leaving for Calgary:

Learn how to become the best advocate for SMART that I could be
Collaborate with others from around the world to get the most out of SMART Technologies
Have FUN!
Make it there in one piece (I'm not the best flyer and this was my first solo flight and really solo adventure of any kind!)

The REALITY!

Became life long friends with 33 other SEE's after just spending 5 days together!
Met the entire SMART family throughout the week (ok, maybe not the whole family, but truly a BIG chunk of them) and had real conversations with them. They listened to what we had to say and valued my opinions and ideas! I will definitely always remember that respect when I am advocating for this great company! A special shout out to our SEE mama for the week, Kelly Miksch and her team that planned it all!
Spent time with a team of SEE's and developers to create a new item. These developers for team C.H.R.I.S.N blew me away with how much they could create in such a short amount of time. We had a Hackathon to present our item to everyone and came in 2nd place!
We had time to plan a global collaboration project together that will take place throughout the year with our students. I am lucky to have fellow SEE's from England, Sweden, and Florida to join up with this year with our team mascot: SMART Traveler! I can't wait to see all the valuable things that our students will learn together.
SMART also allowed SEE's to present on topics that were important to them, but maybe didn't have a SMART Technologies focus. I was able to present with Glory from Australia on our love for Seesaw Learning Journals. This was a great experience to share my knowledge with others that were sharing so much with me!
I am hopeful that I will be able to complete an implementation study with SMART this year with my students. SMART is a company that is always looking for ways to improve. They are an education company first! These implementation studies will not only just help me and my students, but others around the world!
WHITE HAT CEREMONY!! I honestly can't say enough about how this made me feel as an educator! We were sneakily told that we were getting a group photo taken and when we went upstairs, EVERY SMART EMPLOYEE was there giving us a standing ovation and a star walk of fame! We received a white hat and became honorary Calgarians, but so much more happened in that moment. We were appreciated! I will never forget that moment! Thank you SMART!
Every day was a new adventure awaiting us and I enjoyed every conversation, meal, surprise, session, and activity that we got to do. This included going to the site of the Winter Olympics, Canadian Hall of Fame, and Calgary Stampede. WOW! I talked about this experience so much when I got home, my family got annoyed:) And maybe just a wee bit jealous!