Hooray!  If you’re here, you have successfully planned your first Genius Hour, your Genius Hour time is running smoothly, and you are ready to think about presentations! Your students have answered an essential question and are the proud owners of new knowledge.  Now… what are they going to do with it? One of my favorite stages of Genius Hour is the final presentation. Not every classroom conducting Genius Hour requires a final presentation, but in my room, it’s an important way to share our knowledge with the whole group.  Read all about our Genius Hour presentations, and how I set students up for success. 

Text: Genius Hour: Sharing Projects and Presenting Ideas
Image: Six lightbulbs in a row, the second one is illuminated yellow.

This is part three of a three part series on Genius Hour. Don’t forget to check out Part One: How To Get Started With Genius Hour in Lower Elementary, and Part Two: Classroom Management During Genius Hour.

Why do a formal Genius Hour presentation anyways?

The whole point of Genius Hour is to learn about a topic that each student is passionate about.  However, I like to encourage students that new knowledge should be shared.  This is a great way to share their new knowledge with a wider audience.  These ‘formal presentations’ can take a variety of forms, they don’t necessarily have to be a ‘stand and deliver’ traditional presentation.  A student who learned a new skill (to play the guitar, to paint using a new technique) might demonstrate this to the class, another might press play on a video that they created during Genius Hour time, and a third may choose to do a traditional spoken presentation. The point is giving students a chance to share their learning!

Prepare students ahead of time

Giving students time to prepare their presentations is key.  I include this as a part of our Genius Hour time.  If you’ve read Genius Hour: Class Management with Quick Check-Ins, you’ve seen my 3-stage method for Genius Hour. After students have completed their projects, they move on to preparing and practicing their presentations. This stage is so important because it helps to build confidence so that they are ready to share with a real audience come presentation day. 

I also make sure that the actual presentation day is not a surprise.  Using a large anchor chart paper, I set out possible presentation days well in advance. I  spread presentations out over 3-5 days so that students aren’t overwhelmed listening to so many presentations back-to-back.  Then, I let students choose their own presentation day to give them some ownership over this process. 

Invite a Real Audience

If possible, invite a real audience to come and listen to your class give their Genius Hour presentations.  I like to place the presentations at the very beginning, or very end of the school day to give parents the greatest chance of attending, but I know this isn’t possible for many families.  Having a buddy or peer class attend can also give your presentations a real audience! 

Add a Q&A Session

Before presentations begin, I give each student a small paper where they can write down 2-3 questions about each presentation. (This is included in the Genius Hour pack). After a presentation, the presenter hosts a quick Q&A session with the audience. I find that these Q&A’s are invaluable for a couple of reasons.  First, this task helps to keep my audience of students a little more focused during presentations.  Second, it is helpful for my own assessment.  If the student studied polar bears, they should be able to answer “what does a polar bear eat?” If they learned to play a simple song on the guitar, the question “how do you strum a C chord” shouldn’t trip them up either. 

A Complete Genius Hour Plan is Here!

I’ve taken everything I’ve learned from years of Genius Hour and created a complete digital and printable guide to starting up this engaging project in your second, third, or fourth grade classroom. It has teaching guides, a week-by-week timeline, a sample day plan, project ideas, parent letters, student planning pages, rubrics, and more!

grab the whole planning pack

Have you started Genius Hour in your classroom yet? I’d love to know how it’s going or if there’s anything I can do to help!  Leave a comment below or connect with me on Instagram. 

You’ve started Genius Hour! Your students are excited, their passions are being ignited, and each lesson begins with a round of applause. (Well, that last one may be an exaggeration.) But things are off to a great start. Now it’s time for students to dig in to their independent research. But how do you keep them on track? And how do you keep the Genius Hour independent work time as productive as possible?

This is part two of a three part series on Genius Hour. Don’t forget to check out Part One: How To Get Started With Genius Hour in Lower Elementary, and Part Three: Genius Hour Presentations.

Use a Work Log

First, start each work time by taking a peek at the Genius Hour Work Log.  As seen in the Sample Genius Hour Day, students end each day by writing in this log.  Start each work time with a brief reminder of what they had hoped to get started on.  This should give them something to begin with.  

30-Second Check-Ins

Next, once students have started working on something, begin doing 30-second check-ins with each student.  30-second-checks are the lifeblood of my Genius Hour time.  I find that in 30-seconds (or less!) you can pretty quickly tell which students need a little extra help, which ones are doing well, and which ones will need some 1:1 time later in the hour.  I will sit at my teacher table and call students up to let me know where they’re at, and maybe ask a question or two.  Together we will make a quick goal for them to complete before we meet next.

For example: “Find out three more ways that giraffes gather food and then move to creating your project .” “You are going to record three more minutes of your History of Spiderman podcast before we meet next.” “Before next Friday, you will finish painting your birdhouse and bring a notebook to start planning your presentation.”

Divide Genius Hour Work into 3 Stages

Genius Hour work time is largely self-paced.  To help students stay on track, I divide Genius Hour (everything before the presentations) into three stages: research, projects, and presentation planning.  

1. Research - In this stage students are doing the ‘nitty gritty’ research into their topic and trying to answer their essential question.  At the end of this stage, they should not only know the answer to their question but have good knowledge of the topic as a whole. 

2. Project - In the project stage students are working on whatever ‘project’ they have chosen to show what they have learned.  This may be a traditional poster/presentation, they may be building a website, recording a podcast, or creating a number of art pieces using the technique they have researched. 

3. Presentation Planning - When students are confident in their topic and have completed their project, they begin to plan for their presentation.  In my class, this means practicing what they will say in front of the class.  Some students choose to write out a short speech.  If multiple students are at this stage, this is a great chance to practice taking questions about their topic from a peer. 

Somewhere in the classroom I write these three stages on the board and leave space for students to write their initials.  It’s a quick and easy way to see what stage a student is at and see who may need a little more support to move forward.  (Or, see who may be moving too fast, and may need me to check-in with them to see if their research is deep enough or their project thorough enough). 

A small whiteboard displays the word “genius hour” with three subheadings: research, project, and presentation planning.

These routines have made genius hour run so much more effectively in my third grade classroom! I’d love to know if you’ve found any others that have helped students to stay on-task and remain focused during this student-led time. Share them with us in the comments below or over on Instagram! Looking for where to get started with Genius Hour? Read all about my best tips, tricks, and learn from my mistakes on Getting Started with Genius Hour.

A complete plan is here!

I’ve taken everything I’ve learned from years of Genius Hour and created a complete digital and printable guide to starting up this engaging project in your second, third, or fourth-grade classroom. It has teaching guides, a week-by-week timeline, a sample day plan, project ideas, parent letters, student planning pages, rubrics, and more!

Grab the whole pack

A handful of years ago I did my very first Genius Hour in my third-grade classroom.  For those who have never heard of Genius Hour, it is a student-directed hour of independent projects based on their own curiosities. time  It gives students a chance to explore their passions and interests and allows them to develop a lifelong love for learning. Genius Hour also helps to hone research and presentation skills in a way that is 'outside of the box' and creative.

Genius Hour in lower elementary, creating life long learners.

Most of the blogs I had read ahead of time seemed to use Genius Hour in the upper elementary, middle, and high school grades.  Looking back, I wonder if I was crazy to try it with eight-year-olds. Maybe I was. At times, it was insanely chaotic.  I definitely 'bit off more than I could chew' and it was a lot more work than I anticipated. But it was such an overwhelming success with my students that I made it a permanent part of my third-grade curriculum and learned from the parts that I was ill-prepared for the first time around.

Most of the chaos and hard work came from being under-prepared.  I hadn't fully thought through what it would take to prepare seven, eight, and nine-year-olds for independent work.  

Yes,  they are capable of it... but it takes scaffolding and intentional instruction to give them the tools to succeed!  

So, learning from my mistakes, here are four tips for a smoother, well-planned Genius Hour in Elementary!

A complete plan is here!

I’ve taken everything I’ve learned from years of Genius Hour and created a complete digital and printable guide to starting up this engaging project in your second, third, or fourth grade classroom.

It has teaching guides, a week-by-week timeline, a sample day plan, project ideas, parent letters, student planning pages, rubrics, and more!

Grab the Whole Planning Pack

Model Everything

One of the most valuable things I learned in leading Genius Hour in third grade was to model all pieces of the process.  Instead of telling my students to “come up with a topic”, I participated in Genius Hour alongside them and verbalized my thinking process out loud.

"What kinds of things am I interested in, I'll write them down!  The ocean, hockey, running, cooking.  I love to build stuff.  When I was at the ocean I saw a family flying the most amazing kites, and they were doing loops.  It was so interesting."

I didn't just say, "List the things you are interested in," I demonstrated how I would come up with some topics. In future lessons, I explicitly taught how to turn my ideas into an essential question.

"I love kites and the ocean," became my Genius Hour question "How do you build a kite?"

Genius Hour is driven by an essential question that students work each week to solve through research and hands-on exploration.  (Each question cannot be solved by a simple Google search).

Eventually, I even gave a complete Genius Hour presentation.  This way, my students were not caught off-guard by what I expected from a presentation.  I built a simple kite in front of my students and showed what I had learned on a step-by-step poster.

This week-by-week timeline was my saving grace for staying on task for Genius Hour. It breaks down specific skills that students need to learn each week, and where their projects should be at any given time.

Narrow Down The Presentation Options

I have found that in older grades, students are so excited by the idea that they can choose any way that they want to show what they have learned.  The world is their oyster!

However, when I tried this in Third Grade, most of my class looked at me like a group of deer caught in headlights.  They were absolutely overwhelmed by the number of possibilities.

Should I do a poster?

What about a movie too?

Is a poster better than a movie?

I don't want to do a movie.

What if I code a video game?  I don't know what that means. But maybe my brother does.

Do I have to do all of the options?

I was ready to pull my hair out.  So we had a class meeting.

In our classroom, we decided that everyone would have a small poster (I bought the poster board) that showed what they learned, and then they could also have a small model or project if they wanted.

I would suggest narrowing down the options for how Genius Hour can be presented in lower elementary.  As always, allow some students to go 'above and beyond' as they are ready and feel prepared, but don't make this the standard for all students.

Use Simple Ways to Keep Students Accountable

Genius Hour is only one hour long.

It seems like a lot but it will fly by.  To keep students accountable I used a very simple Work Log where students simply answered the question "What did you do today?"  At times, all they would write down was:

I colored my poster.  And that was enough!  Don't waste valuable time filling in a work log when you could be working on Genius Hour.

Check with Parents

This was one of the things that I learned in retrospect.  I allowed students to choose any project of their choice without checking-in at home that each project was o.k. with their families.

It didn't go well for us.

Students assumed that they had access to a computer when they didn't.  Or access to a poster board when they didn't.  Or even a ride to the public library when they didn't.

This year, when my students create their Genius Hour plan, they will also need to have a parent/guardian sign off to make sure that their plan is reasonable.  I don't want to put any undue stress on parents or families and hope that each project is one that my students can do (mostly) independently.

Future years’ project plans had a parent approval and suggestion section!  Much needed after the first year!

Genius Hour planning pages, complete with space for parent or guardian approval!

looking for more about genius hour?

Keep on reading and learning about planning Genius Hour in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades with the rest of the Genius Hour blog series!

• Part 2: Classroom Management During Genius Hour: How To Keep Students On-Task

• Part 3: Genius Hour Presentations

Genius Hour is a hands-on, inquiry-based learning experience in lower elementary. Your students will be SO engaged.