Of all the BIG IDEAS my students and I have had, there’s one that stands out as the craziest, most fulfilling, most educational, and the most fun! It was the creation of a three-room, hands-on mini-museum for our school, complete with scheduled tours and docents, and inspired by San Antonio’s Doseum.
Students always seem to be more engaged when they know they will share the products of their learning with an authentic audience. This is probably why I always looked for ways to share products at our school and also via the internet through our class blog and quadblogging. However, I’d never tried to do something on this scale with students.
So began an amazing journey and process! It’s one thing to prepare a place
for kids to learn and explore. It’s a completely different thing to guide students in preparing a place for others to learn and explore! We’ve never worked so hard, and the work was never more exciting. The San Antonio Doseum even allowed us to use their logo and name, and gave their blessing on our enterprise!
Being one who writes and journals, I decided to document the entire seven-month process on a separate blog. If you’d like to learn more about how it we did it, you can read all about it here!
What’s the riskiest thing you’ve ever tried with your students? Comment below so we can all applaud you! Better yet, be a guest blogger and give us all the details!
(UNIVERSAL THEME: IMPACT ~ 5TH GRADE)
I so appreciate your fabulous activities and challenging projects for Gifted students. Thank you for sharing!
It’s so nice of you to leave a comment! I’m truly enjoying sharing with others. This was one of the more ambitious projects, for sure! It was fun keeping a blog/ journal as we progressed. 🙂
Hi Donna
You have been such an inspiration to me. I was appointed as the G & T teacher for Y1 – Y6 in Perth, Australia. I have many years of teaching under the belt but since there’s no curriculum or guide for G & T here, I found myself having to create a program (which, to be honest, is still a work in progress). I happened to ‘stumble’ across your site and it was a life saver / my go-to for all sorts of information. You have been incredibly generous with ideas, suggestions and resources. I have used it throughout the year to build into my small groups.
Thank you so much for all that you have done in this space to build capacity across the world! 🙂
Kind regards
Michelle
Michelle, your kind words mean so much! You are the teacher I had in mind when I began setting up this site. The goal was to list really great resources and lesson ideas so that teachers like you would have a starting place for creating your own wonderful program. I can relate to floundering around when I took over the GT classes! Your comment here will encourage many other teachers. Don’t hesitate to send a message if I can help in any way!