School Activities

Genius Hour - Rooms 32 and 33

The search-engine giant, Google, allows its engineers to spend 20% of their time to work on any pet project that they want. The idea is very simple. Allow people to work on something that interests them, and productivity will go up. We followed a similar model.  We gave the students from Rooms 33 and 32, one hour a week to pursue a topic they were passionate about.

Goals of this project: 

* To promote, support, and model creative, innovative thinking and inventiveness 

* To allow students an opportunity to discover/investigate one of their passions and create/make/learn a new skill 

* Provide students with an opportunity to develop skill sets that are valuable in any learning situation (research, experimentation, creativity, problem solving and critical thinking) 

* To provide an opportunity for classes to share their Genius and Passion Projects with others 

Tasks

* Once students had an idea of what project they wanted to pursue, they developed a pitch about the project to the rest of the class. Peer and teacher feedback is important to help students hone their ideas. 

* Each week, every student was required to write a journal entry to discuss their progress. They wrote about the week, what they worked on, what they learned, what challenges they faced, and what they anticipated in the future. 

* Students were given one hour a week to work on their projects. If students needed to be off-campus to work on their projects, they were welcome to do that on their own time during weekends or afternoons at home and use the scheduled class time as a productive tutorial period, meeting period, research or writing period.

Expo

This week on Tuesday 20th November, each child show-cased their work in the Witungga Hall. Students and teachers were invited to view the projects in the afternoon and parents and caregivers in the evening. Each student had to show their journal and be prepared to explain their journey and identify the new learning that occurred. 

We were very impressed with the work the student produced and wish to take this opportunity to thank parents and caregivers for their support. The photos will give you some idea of the projects that were submitted.

Lia Taylor and Susan Wilson

More Room 6 lunch box sharing ideas........

Thanks Damien Kerrison and family for this recipe.  Happy creating everybody!

Homemade muesli bars

Ingredients

125ml honey

125 g butter

3 cups rolled oats

1 cup rice bubbles

1 cup sultanas

½ cup chopped apricots

½ cup desiccated coconut

¼ cup pepitas

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 (160 fan-forced)

2. Grease and line a slice tray (31cm x 22cm) with baking paper

3. Combine honey and butter in a saucepan over medium heat.  Cook, stirring, for 2-3 minutes until butter melts and sugar dissolves.  Bring to the boil and cook for 2 minutes of until syrup thickens slightly.  Remove from heat.

4. Combine remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Pour over the hot syrup and stir to combine.

5. Spoon into prepared pan and press firmly to make sure the mixture will stick together.

6. Bake in oven for 15- 20 minutes of until golden.

7. Cool and then refrigerate until well chilled and cut into 24 slices (about 2cm x 6cm)