My Genius Hour Reflection
Summarize the purpose of your Genius Hour project in 140 characters.
Have you ever been going through a drive through, and have someone pay for your food? It makes you happier, right? Well, Ayrika and I devised a plan to have this kindness spread through our whole community. Our plan is to raise money by selling things, and talking to local churches. After we raise this money, we are going to distribute it around the community. For example, we might put $20 on a gas pump, or pay for someone's meal. Well distributing the money, we are also going to leave with a note saying something along these lines "Hello! If you are reading this card, that means that you have been affected by a random act of kindness. Visit www.kallieweecks2.weebly.com or www.ayrikahank.weebly.com, to find our about our project to help the community! If you have the money, pass this act of kindness on; you could make someone's day. If not, please enjoy this gift, and we hope we made your day. :)"
Explain the process of your Genius Hour project. Be reflective. Be contemplative. Explain and describe your journey. (No Less Than Three FULL Paragraphs.)
Our genius hour project started with our plan. We spent days trying to decide what to do, and then the thought to do simple acts of kindness hit us. We wanted everyday people to be impacted by our project. To get started, we redid our weebly pages, and began to further our idea. The next step in our process was to print off cards that we would hand out when distributing our funds. We planned to raise the money by going to churches, but we ended up using mostly our own money for the project.
After planning the project, Ayrika and I wrote and printed out many notes to leave at different places. The next step was to start dispersing the money randomly throughout the town. We would put $10 on a gas pump, or pay for someone’s meal. The small things have the most impact. Upon further reflection, I wish we would've paid for more people’s meals at restaurants because then you can see their reaction. At the gas stations, we would ask the workers to give the people that received the money our card that told them about our genius hour project, and how they could help spread kindness, too.
Well it is obviously impossible to impact everyone in the town, I am hoping that we impacted enough people to try to spread the kindness further. Our plan for this project was for it to have a trickle effect: we pay for someone's gas, they then pay for someone’s meal, and that person then buys another person coffee. This trickle effect causes people to bring happiness into the lives of other, and it impacts them positively as well because helping others feels good. The journey has been great, and I really think we impacted people in the community.
The intention For Genius Hour is NOT only to learn, but ALSO to share your knowledge with others who can and will benefit from your learning. How did you share your learning? What do you hope the result might be? (No Less Than Two Full Paragraphs.)
We learned about how an act of kindness can make or break someone's day. By leaving notecards with our goals, and plan, we hope that others started spreading kindness as well, and learn about the gift of giving. I learned that buying for yourself is not as good as buying for others. When you help someone else, or simply show kindness to them, they are more likely to spread the kindness and to positive others who then spread their happiness, and soon, everyone will be having a good day.
I hope that our project spreads, and continues to spread through the community. We live in Upper Michigan; it is cold, and dark, I don’t want our community to feel the same way as our weather. I hope that we can spread the kindness, and positivity, maybe even spread it to other communities, too. I want others to learn, and appreciate giving to other people, even if they are just random strangers. Giving is a gift in itself.
If you could do anything different with your Genius Hour project what would you do differently and why? (No less than two full paragraphs.)
I wish that we would’ve started this project first, instead of our first genius hour project because I want more time with this project. We can only do so much with so little time, and life tends to get busier towards the end of the school year. Having the ability to stretch our project our for a full year would have impacted more people, and caused the “trickle effect” to continue better. Not that our first genius hour project didn’t help our community; I am just more passionate about the small acts of kindness.
If I could do one thing differently, I would also try to raise more money. While people did give me money for this project, like my mother and grandma, I had to pay a lot of money out of pocket. Had we have done a bake sale, or something to that effect, we could’ve definitely put more money into this project. The first thing we should’ve done in this project was raise money, but that can be hard with such busy schedules. Every day we tried to plan a bake sale, something else was going on. In the end, we still were able to spread a lot of money into the community.
Reflect on what you did well during this Genius Hour process? Note your successes and accomplishments. (No less than two full paragraphs.)
I personally liked how different our project was. There are at least 2 genius hour groups at our school donating and volunteering at the animal shelter. There are other groups helping the caring house, or ringing bells. No one else is doing a project like this, or getting as one on one with the people they are impacting. I think our overall idea for the project was well thought out, and unique.
I have seen the eyes of some of the people we have impacted. You can tell that you helped make someone’s day, and that’s truly special. We’ve been able to share that the youth is not all that bad. We can spread kindness, we can pay for an adults meal, and we can help people. Not all teens today are selfish, and inconsiderate. I believe we helped spread this idea when people found out that two fifteen year old girls paid for their $25 dollar meal.
Include any videos, pictures, presentations, or artifacts that will document your journey
Have you ever been going through a drive through, and have someone pay for your food? It makes you happier, right? Well, Ayrika and I devised a plan to have this kindness spread through our whole community. Our plan is to raise money by selling things, and talking to local churches. After we raise this money, we are going to distribute it around the community. For example, we might put $20 on a gas pump, or pay for someone's meal. Well distributing the money, we are also going to leave with a note saying something along these lines "Hello! If you are reading this card, that means that you have been affected by a random act of kindness. Visit www.kallieweecks2.weebly.com or www.ayrikahank.weebly.com, to find our about our project to help the community! If you have the money, pass this act of kindness on; you could make someone's day. If not, please enjoy this gift, and we hope we made your day. :)"
Explain the process of your Genius Hour project. Be reflective. Be contemplative. Explain and describe your journey. (No Less Than Three FULL Paragraphs.)
Our genius hour project started with our plan. We spent days trying to decide what to do, and then the thought to do simple acts of kindness hit us. We wanted everyday people to be impacted by our project. To get started, we redid our weebly pages, and began to further our idea. The next step in our process was to print off cards that we would hand out when distributing our funds. We planned to raise the money by going to churches, but we ended up using mostly our own money for the project.
After planning the project, Ayrika and I wrote and printed out many notes to leave at different places. The next step was to start dispersing the money randomly throughout the town. We would put $10 on a gas pump, or pay for someone’s meal. The small things have the most impact. Upon further reflection, I wish we would've paid for more people’s meals at restaurants because then you can see their reaction. At the gas stations, we would ask the workers to give the people that received the money our card that told them about our genius hour project, and how they could help spread kindness, too.
Well it is obviously impossible to impact everyone in the town, I am hoping that we impacted enough people to try to spread the kindness further. Our plan for this project was for it to have a trickle effect: we pay for someone's gas, they then pay for someone’s meal, and that person then buys another person coffee. This trickle effect causes people to bring happiness into the lives of other, and it impacts them positively as well because helping others feels good. The journey has been great, and I really think we impacted people in the community.
The intention For Genius Hour is NOT only to learn, but ALSO to share your knowledge with others who can and will benefit from your learning. How did you share your learning? What do you hope the result might be? (No Less Than Two Full Paragraphs.)
We learned about how an act of kindness can make or break someone's day. By leaving notecards with our goals, and plan, we hope that others started spreading kindness as well, and learn about the gift of giving. I learned that buying for yourself is not as good as buying for others. When you help someone else, or simply show kindness to them, they are more likely to spread the kindness and to positive others who then spread their happiness, and soon, everyone will be having a good day.
I hope that our project spreads, and continues to spread through the community. We live in Upper Michigan; it is cold, and dark, I don’t want our community to feel the same way as our weather. I hope that we can spread the kindness, and positivity, maybe even spread it to other communities, too. I want others to learn, and appreciate giving to other people, even if they are just random strangers. Giving is a gift in itself.
If you could do anything different with your Genius Hour project what would you do differently and why? (No less than two full paragraphs.)
I wish that we would’ve started this project first, instead of our first genius hour project because I want more time with this project. We can only do so much with so little time, and life tends to get busier towards the end of the school year. Having the ability to stretch our project our for a full year would have impacted more people, and caused the “trickle effect” to continue better. Not that our first genius hour project didn’t help our community; I am just more passionate about the small acts of kindness.
If I could do one thing differently, I would also try to raise more money. While people did give me money for this project, like my mother and grandma, I had to pay a lot of money out of pocket. Had we have done a bake sale, or something to that effect, we could’ve definitely put more money into this project. The first thing we should’ve done in this project was raise money, but that can be hard with such busy schedules. Every day we tried to plan a bake sale, something else was going on. In the end, we still were able to spread a lot of money into the community.
Reflect on what you did well during this Genius Hour process? Note your successes and accomplishments. (No less than two full paragraphs.)
I personally liked how different our project was. There are at least 2 genius hour groups at our school donating and volunteering at the animal shelter. There are other groups helping the caring house, or ringing bells. No one else is doing a project like this, or getting as one on one with the people they are impacting. I think our overall idea for the project was well thought out, and unique.
I have seen the eyes of some of the people we have impacted. You can tell that you helped make someone’s day, and that’s truly special. We’ve been able to share that the youth is not all that bad. We can spread kindness, we can pay for an adults meal, and we can help people. Not all teens today are selfish, and inconsiderate. I believe we helped spread this idea when people found out that two fifteen year old girls paid for their $25 dollar meal.
Include any videos, pictures, presentations, or artifacts that will document your journey