My favorite days of teaching are hands-down the days that students are creating. Maybe it's the STEM teacher in me or perhaps I'm obsessed with helping my students find their Ikigai. It just so happened, our last day of AIR Testing landed on Global Day of Design. I took this opportunity to pitch an idea to my team: LETS LAUNCH A PROJECT ON A LARGE SCALE... FOR 2 DAYS!! They all said yes!!
If you are not familiar with Global Day of Design, here are two videos by the creators of the day (and authors of Empower), John Spencer and A.J. Juliani:
In the days leading up to Global Day of Design, I surveyed my students asking them one simple questions: If you could build ANYTHING in school, what would it be?
Their responses fell into nine categories. Once I had the idea groupings, I explained the plan to my students and had them take another survey specifically what project they wanted to work on. Here is the Global Day of Design Options/Planning doc I shared with the students. To say the kiddos were excited was an understatement. They were ecstatic! It was infectious, I couldn't wait to see what they would create. At a team meeting, I asked the 6th grade teachers to choose a category and shared the students responses. What shocked me was that the teachers were beginning to get excited about the event as well.
Once the groups were made, I shared the responses with my team and the teachers began gathering supplies or enlisting the help of the students to gather supplies for the day. It was awesome! Everyone made something and everyone enjoyed themselves. The students were so empowered by the event. So many students commented on how great it was to work on something of their choosing.
Before they could begin creating, the students needed to create a design/plan and share it with the teacher in the room. From there, they were let loose. At the end of each day, the groups spent the last 15-20 minutes sharing their work, successes, and challenges they were having. The feedback given by other classmates was phenomenal! The students really listened to their peers and gave fantastic suggestions for improvements or possible solutions to each project's roadblocks.
Here are some of my favorite pictures from the days:
Building Jewelry boxes for Mothers' Day
Building a Foosball Table
"Launching" an Airplane
Cardboard Creators in the Makerspace
New Lounge Chair
Young Authors
Tie-Dye School Spirit!
Melted Crayon Art
Building a Dog House
Mr. Weaver might have had more fun than the kids.
Creating Video Games
Making Boxes
Plans for a Pulley-System/Elevator
Our LAUNCH Projects made a FANTASTIC display at the Barnes and Noble Book Fair the next day.
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