Hour of wonder is rather simple; the students get one whole hour to explore whatever they have been wondering about tied to a certain unit, within that hour they must create something and then present it the following day.. We were studying the European explorers and they had quite the list of questions, this therefore wrapped up our unit much better than any test could.
So how did it go? Brilliantly. The students were engaged and teaching each other new information. Two boys discovered that James Cooke was the first European in Australia and in Antarctica and they thought that was really neat. Others built ship models, created posters about other people and whatever else they had wondered about. I had supplied construction paper, anything else the students had to figure out themselves.
Innovation Day can be harder to fit into your schedule but Hour of Wonder is not. Think of all those hours leading up to vacations or disrupted blocks because of assemblies or something else. Why not turn those over to the students? Have them explore what they are curious about and then share it with the class; you will not be disappointed.
PS: Little prep went into this. I revealed the project Wednesday, they brainstormed and then did it on Thursday. They didn't need approval or anything like that.
Pete decided to create a stop motion video
