Revel Recap: Dec. 7 - 11, 2020
Spark Studio
Mindfulness and Launch
Our week began by taking time to reflect and write an entry in our gratitude journals about something for which we are thankful. The learners are doing such a great job of recognizing and documenting all the positive things in their lives! On Tuesday, the Sparks really enjoyed following a directed drawing of a reindeer. Each picture is so adorable and they were proud to display them in our window for their families to see. On Wednesday, we started with a seated warm-up. Starting at our neck, we did various exercises to stretch each part of our body. We then tried to balance on different body parts. For example, balance on one foot, hands only, belly, back, toes and heels. We then listened to a meditation story about the Gingerbread man. These meditation stories are generally about four minutes long and the Sparks are working really hard to stay present and calm their minds and bodies during these activities. For mindful colouring on Thursday, we completed a picture of Little Red Riding Hood. We reviewed what a compliment is and how it makes people feel on Friday. We then went around the circle, saying something nice to the person sitting beside us.
Quest
We had another busy week in Quest! On Monday we started by reading The Three Billy Goats Gruff. The learners were then challenged to use a variety of materials such as wooden blocks, paper cups, and popsicle sticks to create a bridge that the three goats could cross. We created the characters and taped them to wooden blocks and the Sparks had a lot of fun retelling the story. On Tuesday we read another version of this story and discussed any similarities or differences. We then brainstormed ways the goats could have gotten to the other side without having to cross the bridge. There were some very creative ideas! Our next activity was to make a boat that could hold the goats so that they could float across the water and not have to use the bridge! The Sparks got right to work on this challenge, trying different ideas and brainstorming with each other. They used aluminum foil, popsicle sticks, paper cups and a lot of tape to make their designs! They enjoyed watching each other’s boats being put into the water and testing whether they floated! On Wednesday we read a classic version of Little Red Riding Hood and after completing a story sequencing sheet, they made the forest and granny’s house out of Duplo blocks and Magnatiles. Sparks then went a step further and made finger puppets to use with the scenes they created. On Thursday and Friday, we read two different versions of this story. Little Red Hot and Red Riding Hood Was Rotten. We had a great discussion on which story we liked best and why. We also had fun creating our wolf puppets with paper bags. Some of the Sparks chose to cut the teeth off the puppet, insisting the wolf is a nice character!
French
This week in the Spark Studio, we worked on some listening and reading activities. Each Spark had a deck of cards with images and words to go with the images. The first step was for them to listen to the word Mme. Talina was saying, identify the correct photo, and lift it up for everyone to see. Once we had all the images named and in order Mme. Talina would repeat the words by sounding out the first letter of each word until they found the correct card with the correct word. We also played Pictionary, where each Spark had a turn to come up and draw a winter word on the board and the other Sparks had to guess the correct word in French.
Additional Highlights
During our read aloud this week, we took some time to read and learn about Hanukkah traditions. On Thursday, two of the Rebels who celebrate Hanukkah took some time to tell us how their families celebrate this holiday. We also continued to review the names of the geometric solids and played the “What’s Missing?” game. Our sight word this week was the word was and the Sparks are working hard at memorizing these tricky words! Additional highlights this week were making snowman ornaments, which the Sparks are excited to display at home. Dance parties continue to be a popular way to end our day and the group especially enjoys action songs where they listen and do the movements the song says. We also played a few rounds of the game Memory, which was a fun challenge. We took advantage of some of the warmer days this week and spent extra time outdoors. Games of tag, hide and seek, playing cats, and exploring in the mud continued to be popular choices. They also made snow angels and snowmen. In the gym, they were excited to see the addition of the gym mats, with which they immediately began building forts, often utilizing the Exploration Rebels for heavy lifting!
Discovery Studio
Mindfulness
We began our week with a full-body scan, bringing awareness to how each body part feels and releasing any tension where possible. Some Rebels took their scan a step farther by colouring how each part of their body felt. Tuesday and Thursday Mindful Colouring included our usual Zen Doodles with some new holiday-themed colouring pages to get everyone into the holiday spirit. Wednesday and Friday yoga classes focused on mindful meditations and the importance of stillness. Rebels are working toward an end of session goal; to be completely still and focus on their breath for a full 15 minutes! This week we made it to 9 minutes!
Launches
O Canada! When should we alter or change our national oath, symbols, or anthems? After discussing the history of “O Canada,” Rebels learned about the lyric change suggested by Mauril Belanger that became official in 2018. We then spoke about potential other changes that we may see moving forward. Some felt there needed to be more homage made to the indigenous population while others wondered about the role of God in the anthem. On Tuesday, Rebels discussed some of Canada’s wackiest bylaws! With Civilizations and Quest in mind, the launch aimed to highlight an important aspect of municipal government regulations that are in place across our country. Wednesday was spent discussing various voting systems including; plurality, instant runoff, tactical, and the Condorcet method. After learning about the four, we debated which system seems the fairest and which they would prefer to use for our elections. Thursday’s Current Events was full of heartwarming stories from around the world! Koalas and owls in Christmas trees, a 7-year-old girl from Chicago who has raised over 20,000$ for PPE equipment for local hospitals and of course, the highly anticipated weekly reel of quotes from “Live From Snack Time!” Our Friday launch was spent reflecting on how Mrs. Erin’s “Day of No Talking” went on Thursday. While it frustrated many of the Rebels at first, the overwhelming takeaways were that the learners need to read the full set of instructions before seeking help and that they are incredibly capable and need to rely on themselves and one another more often. We also altered how we are going to track Lexia progress going forward in order to make it more learner-driven. All in all, the experiment was a success!
Rebel Readers & Warrior Writers
On Monday, Aim and Release Rebels continued working on our persuasive letters to Mayor Jim Watson. Rebels have some fabulous COVID-safe ideas to help the community of Ottawa keep spirits high over the holiday season! Rebels will have one more class next week to peer-edit and finalize their letters before submitting. On Wednesday, Draw and Anchor Rebels reviewed the 10 advertising techniques that we discussed last week and began to create their Holiday Cereal Box advertisement. It was so much fun observing the creativity and clever tactics the Rebels used to persuade consumers to purchase their product! Rebels also successfully completed our Spelling Test for this session and started to write their “Cereal Box Pitch” journal entry. Day 2 of Re-Designing Santa’s Sleigh in our Reader/Writer Friday Mission was a huge success! Rebels finalized their “Owners Manual” descriptions and worked on the images that highlighted the best features of their sleigh. The sleighs will be on display next week, and the winning design will be chosen before our Special Edition Holiday Jeopardy game next Friday. Way to go, Rebels!
Math Lab
Wahoo!!! Our Draw Rebels all earned their Math Facts That Stick - Addition badge this week! Finishing up one more packet, Draw learners completed a quick fact check and then played Zeus on the Loose or Cloud Hopper to reinforce their addition and subtraction facts. Anchor Rebels worked on their x7 table with their weekly packet and Math Facts That Stick games before also joining in on a few cooperative games.
The Aim and Release Rebels continued working on their Gingerbread house designs ensuring to find the perimeter and area of their base and attempt to include as many mathematical terms as possible. Once they were happy with their blueprints, some of our Rebels reviewed coordinate pairs, graphing each pair on a coordinate plane in order to complete a mystery picture.
French
This week in the Discovery Studio, the intermediate group started off with some group discussions about what they did on the weekend and what they will be presenting next week. Afterward, we focused on strengthening their grammar foundation by reviewing two of the three verb groups in the present tense. Rebels conjugated familiar verbs as a group and then put their knowledge to the test. We finished off with some sentence writing by looking at cards with images and creating sentences with the word seen on the card. Rebels also worked on their individual presentations, where they will be sharing a family tradition or celebration with the studio next week. Finally, some Rebels started writing letters to residents in a long-term facility in the neighbourhood as a pen pal program to practice their French writing skills through an authentic task. Rebels will be hand-writing these letters and are asked to work together when they are searching for words, instead of using Google translate.
The beginner group started off with discussion questions talking about their favourite foods and music genre. Afterward, they continued learning about new winter vocabulary through interactive activities where they had to match photos with the correct words or sentences in French. We also used those words to say them out loud and place them in the correct “Le” or “La” columns. Next week we will continue learning about the feminine and masculine articles “Un”and “Une” with the new vocabulary we will learn from the Rebels’ presentations.
Quest
This week our study of Canada focused on government. We began with a discussion of various forms of government including democracies, communism, totalitarianism, and oligarchies. We then learned that Canada is a Federal State, Parliamentary Democracy, and Constitutional Monarchy and attempted to make an infographic or flow chart to better understand these terms. These are difficult concepts, but our Rebels are starting to gain a better understanding of what the terms actually mean and how it affects the way that Canada is governed. On Tuesday, we focused our attention on the three levels (Federal, Provincial/Territorial, and Municipal) and the three branches (Legislative, Executive, and Judicial) of government and for what each is responsible. We then split into pairs to read a small paragraph about an issue or problem and had to figure out if it was under the federal, provincial, or municipal jurisdiction. Rebels then had time to work on their games or study guides. Wednesday was spent addressing the rights and responsibilities of Canadian citizens, focusing on participation through voting. After learning about different methods of voting during launch, we spent Quest learning about the history of voting rights in Canada and the electoral system. In order to become more familiar with our current system, Rebels were tasked with researching to find their electoral district, current MP, as well as leaders at all three levels. The entire period on Thursday was spent working on our games and study guides. The learners are working really hard on their various projects and some have even finished and begun to play and give feedback to one another! We will be playing all of the games this next week in order to study for our citizenship test!
PE
We had a fantastic circuit this week and experimented with a new format. Rebels were introduced to AMRAP (As Many Reps As Possible) in a 4 minute time period. Each station focused on a different muscle group, and Rebels cycled through 4-5 movements that targeted various parts of the body. It was definitely more challenging than usual but the Rebels really rose to the challenge! The other group went outside for a hike in the Carlington hill area, enjoying the snow and milder temperatures. Wednesday’s gym group started off with a warm-up, an obstacle course race, and a winter version of a Pirates of the Caribbean game. During the obstacle course race, the Rebels did an incredible job of encouraging and supporting one another! In the Pirates of the Caribbean game, Rebels had to work as a team to get all of the snowballs back to the snow fort without getting tagged by the snow monsters. It was so great to see everyone work together and help tidy up the equipment in between games. Meanwhile, the outdoor group played football. We started off with some drills around dekes, practiced some common routes, and finished off with a scrimmage.
Closings and Town Hall
Every day this week, Rebels had the opportunity to complete a Canada Quiz which we then went over at Closing. It has been really fun watching them become more engaged with Canadian history, geography, and culture! On Wednesday in preparation for Hanukkah, we read Lemony Snicket’s The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming! One of our Rebels led a Kahoot about him on Thursday and on Friday we held our weekly Town Hall.
Exploration Studio
Launch
Launches and closings this week were all run by the learners. Eight learners ran a discussion on topics ranging from sadness to gender identity…very adolescent! The leaders prepared questions to enrich the conversation, facilitated the discussion, and made connections between what all the learners were saying. The learners were all very mature in their facilitation and ended the discussions by receiving feedback on their leadership.
Quest
Each learner became a philosopher this week! We started off by going over an example of philosophies by discussing one Deagan wrote on deontology. Each learner had experience with answering philosophical questions from their study on the five branches of philosophy and they were excited to be able to spend a big chunk of time diving into their chosen questions. Most learners chose an ethical question to answer and found an ethical theory to back up their argument. Each Rebel also learned about a philosopher who wrote on their specific topic and included them in their writing piece. To cap off the week, we had a round table discussion where each learner became an expert in their topic and spoke about broad ideas from their studies. The question we spent the most time answering was “Do you judge someone based on their intentions, or outcomes of an action?”
Big History
In Big History this week, we made brochures on an out of this world topic! Instead of a simple travel brochure, Deagan challenged all of the learners to get creative. As an example, his brochure was for available job positions at a radio station positioned right next to a quasar (which emits radio waves). Each learner created their own brochure with topics ranging from a diamond company on Neptune, to an Ice Hotel on Haley’s comet. We are looking for a brochure stand to house all of our brochures, if anyone has one lying around!
Math Lab
Exploration Rebels continued their exploration of Computer Animated Design in this week’s Math Lab period. Using SketchUp or TinkerCAD many of the learners created the basic design for their gingerbread houses. While both systems are not easy to use, we saw incredible progress and willingness to play around this week! For those who felt good about their design or needed a break, we reviewed four quadrant coordinate planes through a Mystery Picture activity!
PE
We had a fantastic circuit this week and experimented with a new format. Rebels were introduced to AMRAP (As Many Reps As Possible) in a 4 minute time period. Each station focused on a different muscle group, and Rebels cycled through 4-5 movements that targeted various parts of the body. It was definitely more challenging than usual, but the Rebels really rose to the challenge! The other group went outside for a hike in the Carlington hill area, enjoying the snow and milder temperatures. Wednesday’s gym group started off with a warm-up, an obstacle course race, and a winter version of a Pirates of the Caribbean game. During the obstacle course race, the Rebels did an incredible job of encouraging and supporting one another! In the Pirates of the Caribbean game, Rebels had to work as a team to get all of the snowballs back to the snow fort without getting tagged by the snow monsters. It was so great to see everyone work together and help tidy up the equipment in between games. Meanwhile, the outdoor group played football. We started off with some drills around dekes, practiced some common routes, and finished off with a scrimmage.
French
This week in the Exploration Studio, the intermediate group started off with a discussion about what they did on the weekend and what they will be presenting next week. We reviewed conjugating all three groups of the present tense verbs by working as a group and then conjugating familiar verbs. Rebels also worked on their individual presentations where they will be sharing a family tradition or celebration with the studio next week. Some Rebels even began writing letters to residents in a long-term facility in the neighbourhood as a pen pal program to practice their French writing skills through an authentic task. Rebels will be handwriting these letters and are asked to work together when they are searching for words, instead of using Google translate. Meanwhile, the beginner group started off with discussion questions talking about their favourite foods and music genre. Afterward, we introduced two groups of present tense verbs by conjugating them together on the board. Rebels then tested their knowledge by conjugating verbs from these groups. We finished by reviewing the structure of a simple sentence and wrote some down using the verbs we were learning.
Potential Discussion Ideas or Questions to Ask your Rebel:
Exploration: Do you judge someone based on the outcome or intention of their action?
Exploration: How do you prefer to showcase your learning; through video, song, creative writing, essay, or something else?
Discovery: Tell me about your Canadian Citizenship study guide/game!
Discovery: What are the special features of your group’s sleigh?
Spark: What materials did you use to make your boat? Did it float in the water?
Spark: What was the compliment you gave to the person sitting next to you? Which compliment did you receive? How did it make you feel?
Upcoming Events and Special Dates:
Exploration Exhibition: Wednesday, December 16th at 2:00 pm on Zoom
Discovery Exhibition: Thursday, December 17th at 2:00 pm on Zoom
Holiday Break: Monday, December 21st - Friday, January 1st
Session 4 Begins: Monday, January 4th