Revel Recap: October 18 - 22, 2021
Spark Studio
Mindfulness
Welcome back, Sparks! Everyone arrived on Monday with a lot of excitement and enthusiasm. We began our week together with a guided meditation story. We each found a comfortable spot with the lights off and focused our imaginations on a story about a castle in the sky. The Sparks did a great job with this visualization activity, and we look forward to incorporating this practice more into our days. We continued our mindful colouring with space and autumn-themed pictures on Tuesday and Thursday, and Wednesday, we found ourselves on a space-themed yoga adventure. We ended our week listening to the song “A Beautiful, Beautiful World” and reflecting on what we love about our planet. We then drew pictures and wrote in our gratitude journals about what we are thankful for on Earth.
French
What a busy week in French class! This week we looked at not one but two letters of the alphabet. On Monday, we started with the letter D when we read On ne mange pas ses camarades de classe by Ryan T. Higgins, which is about “un dinosaure”. On Tuesday, we looked at a few more words beginning with D, coloured our letter D sheets and drew “un dinosaure” with Didou and Yoko. On Wednesday and Thursday, the Sparks focused on the letter E. After guessing the words that Mme Marie drew on the board, we talked about “un escargot,” a snail. We also coloured our letter E sheet. Finally, we practiced a new song called Petit escargot. There are many words that we already knew in that song!
Quest
Following the lead of our Spark learner’s interests, we began our new Quest all about SPACE! The Rebels were very excited as we dove into this new topic. We started our week working on a KWL chart together (Know, Wonder, Learned). The learners shared so many interesting facts about what they already knew that we ran out of room on our whiteboard! We then shifted our conversation to what we wondered about space. Some things they would like to learn more about are the moon, the sun and Earth. They also want to know if there are any animals in space, how do you get to space, how do you walk in space, how was the first star made, and how far can you jump in space? Wow, what amazing guiding questions to lead us on this inquiry! At the end of Quest, we will return to our chart to answer our last column, What did we learn?!
This week our main focus was on our solar system and planets. This week, we read four great books: The Solar System, There’s No Place Like Space, Me and My Place in Space, and Planets by National Geographic. The Sparks also really loved listening to various songs about the planets, with the Story Bots version being a studio favourite! These books and songs provided a lot of information and fun facts! Ask your learner to share with you what they are learning; they have a lot to talk about on this topic! This week, we also worked on activities to become familiar with the planet names and order and their appearance. We made solar system hats that they are already excited to wear at Exhibition. Working together, we found each planet in our book, observed how it looked and coloured it accurately. After spending a few days learning about our planets, we imagined that we had discovered a brand new planet! The Sparks showcased their brilliant imaginations as they coloured unique-looking planets, named them, answered some questions and told us one interesting fact about it! The next day we created versions of these planets using clay. We ended our week with a ‘Write the Room’ planet scavenger hunt! The Sparks got their clipboards and went on a search for the hidden planets around the studio. Once they located them, they wrote the names on their papers. They had so much fun looking, and there was great teamwork as they helped each other find the ones they needed! They also showed a lot of creativity while using loose parts to create planet Earth, astronauts and spaceships. What a great week!
Additional Highlights
This week the Sparks were ready to get back to their work with the materials. Many of the learners started with creating goal sheets, which helped structure their week and ensured we were completing a variety of activities. Our sight word was ‘on’, and the letter of the week was E. Our studio highlight this week was definitely the addition of chicken eggs to our studio! The Sparks have been checking on them daily and have been mindful of turning the eggs carefully and being gentle when observing them through the incubator. One of the Rebels brought in a calendar of the egg development, and the learners have loved checking on the progress each day! We also enjoyed creating leaf rubbings for art this week. Another studio favourite was our arranging flowers activity. The Sparks were excited to create their own arrangements in vases and decided to deliver some of their beautiful flowers to the other guides and studios to brighten their day and spaces! They were very proud to deliver them and talked afterwards about how happy everyone looked when they gave them the flowers! On Thursday, we visited a Launchpad Rebel who shared a bit about the Walk for Wenjack and prepared us for our community walk on Friday. We ended our week with Reading Buddies, Character Callouts, and enjoying fun Friday activities.
Discovery Studio
Mindfulness
Welcome back, Rebels! To begin the second session, Rebels took stock of their favourite parts of mindfulness from Session 1. They reported that they enjoyed the guided visual meditations, sound meditations, and mindful colouring the most. We will therefore focus on more variations of those activities in the coming weeks! On Monday, we tried a body scan to help relax and gain awareness of our bodies and how they feel when we experience different emotions. The yoga sessions on Tuesday and Thursday focused on yin-like stretching (long and slow) to soothe sore muscles. Wednesday and Friday, Rebels chose from a variety of mindful colouring pages.
Launches
To kick off Session 2 and our study of space, Discovery Rebels took part in a Socratic discussion around persistence, financial responsibility, and whether it is ever a good decision to “quit.” Using Elon Musk’s incredibly expensive failed experiments as the foundation, Rebels voted on how much money should be spent on these types of endeavours and whether the money would be better spent on helping save our current planet. On Tuesday, Rebels shared some ways to stand up for the LGBTQ+ community and be a great Ally. We also watched Expressing Myself. My Way, a video about picking out the clothes that make us feel happy! At Wednesday’s launch, Rebels discussed our overarching question for the year: Does the past determine the future? Thinking about the question in different contexts, Rebels shared a lot of thoughtful ideas about how past mistakes don’t define us, how patterns develop in civilizations whether it be through healthcare, cooperation or conflict, and how we are not necessarily doomed to repeat history (but we must always keep learning!). Thursday’s Current Events update included Jupiter as the Planet of the Week, “Wall Street has gone Bananas!” and celebrated the first transgender 4-star admiral appointed to the US Government, Rachel Levine. On Friday, we had our first Rebel-led launch on Cocoa Beans! A big thank you to our learner, as he sparked a fabulous conversation about sustainable farming, ethically sourced products, and the power and critical thinking that come with labels and marketing.
Reader/Writer
Aim and Release Rebels had a busy first day in Reader/Writer as we went over their new Writing Checklists and all the challenges to complete for Session 2. We introduced the new novel study, Hidden Figures, that would support our session’s space theme! After completing the novel’s weekly chapter requirements, rebels voted to have Book Club and Film Club in Week 6. Rebels exercised their executive functioning skills as they mapped out how they would complete their checklists by the end of Week 6 this session and began working on challenges in their Duotangs. Draw and Anchor Rebels participated in this week’s Mentor Text Read Aloud: There’s No Place Like Space! Rebels opted to listen and discuss or listen and complete their Spelling Packet for Week 1 to prepare for their spelling test next Wednesday. Rebels then got to work on their next set of Night Zookeeper Challenges, as the goal is to complete a minimum of 10 Challenges this session, doubling up from the 5 Challenges completed in Session 1. A job well done on a fantastic first week back, Rebels!
Math Lab
This week Rebels were introduced to our Session 2 routine, where they will rotate between two stations every Math Lab. At Station 1, Rebels complete a deep dive into the Guided Weekly Challenge (with Ms. Mel). Here they are focusing on developing their Mathematical Processes toolkit. Both groups discussed the importance of noting the “givens” or important numbers in a problem and the unknowns (in some cases, there are even distractors of which to beware!). Draw and Anchor focused on using snap cubes to model a perimeter and area problem from the story Spaghetti and Meatballs for All by Marilyn Burns. Aim and Release focused on using the decomposing strategy and formulas to find smaller areas within a composite figure. At Station 2, Rebels work with their peers and independently to complete the Problem of the Week, Math Flip journals and additional practice with important number patterns and Base Ten models. All Rebels accomplished a lot this week and have found their stride and pace in the lab. It’s going to be an extraordinary session!
Quest
NASA Rebel Recruits have been busy at headquarters this week as we officially launched Session 2: SPACE JAM! On Monday, we started right away visualizing the magnitude and scale of the universe and our place in it. From there, curiosity and wonder drove the co-creation of a KWL Chart to shape our inquiry in preparation for the upcoming Revel Academy Space Symposium (to be scheduled the week of Nov 22-24). Rebels brainstormed what they KNOW, what they WONDER and what they would most like to LEARN about space. On Tuesday, we started with a mini-Jeopardy round using the questions created by Rebels the day before. Rebels then completed an Instant Challenge where they had to work with their squads to create a memory device for the planets in our solar system or the different spheres of space. Wednesday, we turned our focus to vocations in space, learning about the skills and learning pathways required to make it to NASA, whether as an astronaut like Jerry Carr, or a systems engineer like Kevin DeBruin (and so many others more). Rebels designed their NASA career profile, also completing an eye test as one part of their top-secret security clearance. On Thursday, we screened “Lost in Space!” an episode of Magic School Bus, while Rebels had an opportunity to ensure all Quest work from the week was completed.
French
This week, Discovery Studio Rebels made sure that they were ready for Session 2. Once we were organized, we grabbed our computers to talk about Duolingo and joined the French Google Classroom, which Mme Marie will be using to share resources such as videos, articles and games. On Tuesday, we found out about our session theme: “la sorcière.” That’s right; this session will be all about witches! The Rebels answered questions about the trailer for La sorcière dans les airs in a fun game of Kahoot!. We will be watching the full movie later this session. Finally, we prepared a vocabulary sheet and read a few pages from Le dictionnaire des sorcières by Grégoire Solotareff.
Civilizations
Rebels kicked off their S.T.E.A.M. 100 Point Project Challenge this week for Ancient Civilizations with a focus on Ancient Egypt. Rebels discussed what the 100 Point Project Challenge is, the approval process for points throughout the next six weeks, and expectations for set-up, clean up, and storage as they develop their projects.
Physical Development
On Monday, Rebels chose between Sabakiball with Mme. Marie or high-intensity outdoor games led by two Exploration Rebels with Ms. Erin. On Wednesday, there was a beautiful fall hike led by Mr. Deagan or track and relay practice with Ms. Jenna.
Additional Highlights
On Thursday, Rebels surprised Ms. Jenna and showered her with advice and wishes for her new baby! We played baby-related trivia games, decorated onesies, and enjoyed yummy cupcakes. Ms. Jenna, we will miss you so much!
Friday brought our Walk for Wenjack. Rebels began the 600 km journey to bring Chanie home and continued conversations about Truth and Reconcili-ACTION.
Exploration Studio
Launch
On Monday’s launch, Mme Marie introduced the French theme for Session 2 with a Kahoot!. We discussed which monster is scarier, the least scary, and which one we’d like to meet. And, most importantly, are mummies making a comeback after the toilet paper shortage of the beginning of the pandemic? The remainder of the week served as a break from the Rebel-led launches so that the learners could reflect on their launches for this session. Deagan ran two launches about the learners’ new Reconciliation goal. The first launch introduced the learners to the expectation and explored five options for them to act upon, including reading one of the many books in school from Indigenous authors or donating their Rebel Bucks. The second launch on the topic centred around the question of When is help not helpful? We looked at a comedy sketch that points out the shallowness of performative actions like quick Land Acknowledgments. We also learned a fun game called Two Rooms and a Boom. The learners certainly loved it and asked when we would be playing it next!
French
As the Rebels learned during Monday’s launch, the French theme of the session is “les monstres.” We had a busy week setting up for the session and discussing best practices for Duolingo and the workbook. On Tuesday, we received some exciting news from Mme Marie; we’re going to have Pen Pals! We have started filling out our information sheets and, soon, we will be paired up with 8th graders from France to begin a snail mail exchange.
Math Lab
In this session in Math Lab, we will be focusing on Data Science! Utilizing the work of Jo Boaler and her team at Stanford and YouCubed, Rebels will improve their ability to work with, understand, and navigate our data-intensive world, with a focus on the skills required to separate fact from fiction. This week we began our class with a Data Talk, a discussion to develop data literacy. Rebels were shown three different data visuals and were asked, What do you notice? What do you wonder? What is going on with this data visualization? After a lively discussion on the visuals for growth mindset at different grade levels, handwashing, and social media usage amongst US teens, we turned to our activity. Rebels each chose a data card that provided information about one movie from the Marvel Universe. They were then asked to play the part of their “data point” as they physically organized themselves into live visualizations of the data on our gym-size graph. Rebels completed each challenge given the graph type and variables, creating various bar graphs, histograms, and scatter plots. Lastly, Rebels drew some conclusions based on the patterns from their data visual.
Documentary
On Monday, we focused our attention on screenplays. We read through the opening scene of Toy Story pretending to be the characters and then compared it to the final production. The learners were surprised by how much scene direction there is in scripts and learned that four pages of script equal 1 minute of screen time. Many learners who have ambitions of 30-minute documentaries were shocked that they may need to write 120 pages.
We practised our executive functioning skills on Thursday by developing road maps for the subsequent ten documentary periods. The learners detailed their goals for those ten periods and then divided responsibilities and created smaller deadlines. Each group had a different approach. Some groups decided to complete their work in chunks, working together and aiming to finish their scripts. Other groups are doing more of a rolling start, writing, filming and editing each chapter before moving on to the next.
Quest
The first four days of our Podcast Quest went by smoothly. On Monday, Deagan showed off his podcast that he made as an example over the break, and the learners gave feedback, followed by feedback on their feedback. On Tuesday, we went through the gamut of different podcasts that exist to inspire the Rebels for their podcast. Wednesday and Thursday Quest periods saw learners writing their podcast reviews and learning about Anchor, the podcast-making platform we will be using.
Apprenticeship Prep / Elective
The biggest highlight of the week with the Apprenticeship Prep was introducing the option of working on a project at Revel. We decided that a project at Revel needed three qualities: purpose, impact, and deliverables. We went over a huge list of possible topics (like beatboxing) and talked about turning them into legitimate projects. A few learners developed projects this week that they are going to be working on. It seems that most learners are excited about the opportunity to work on a project once they complete their first apprenticeship. More than half of the learners have apprenticeships either on the go or about to start, and one learner has even finished their first one!
Physical Development
On Monday, Rebels chose between Sabakiball with Mme. Marie, high-intensity outdoor games led by two Exploration Rebels, or a hike with Deagan. On Wednesday, there was track and relay practice with Ms. Jenna and another beautiful fall hike led by Deagan.
Additional Highlights
On Thursday, Rebels surprised Ms. Jenna and showered her with advice and wishes for her new baby! We played baby-related trivia games, decorated onesies, and enjoyed cupcakes. Ms. Jenna, we will miss you so much!
Friday brought our Walk for Wenjack organized by the Launchpad Studio. Rebels began the 600 km journey to bring Chanie home and continued conversations about Truth and Reconcili-ACTION.
Launchpad
Indigenous Canada
As this is Secret Path week, Launchpad Rebels came together for a planning session where they listed the remaining action items required for Friday’s Walk for Wenjack. Using an Eisenhower Matrix, they decided the most critical and urgent jobs and assigned deadlines for the less urgent tasks. They delivered launches or closings throughout the week in the three other studios, working to create developmentally appropriate lessons. Learners also completed the community tracker to track how many kilometres our Rebels walk with their families throughout the year with the hopes of reaching at least 600 km, the distance it would have taken Chanie Wenjack to get home. With the walk arranged for October 22nd, the date of Chanie’s death, learners chose the path for our community event, created maps for the guides, and found volunteers from the Exploration Studio to stand at the corners to guide the walk. On Friday, all Rebels did an excellent job respectfully walking to honour Chanie and all of the Indigenous children who never made it home from the Residential schools.
Rebels also completed a unit of their Indigenous Canada course on the study of Sovereign Lands. This lesson connected Indigenous worldviews and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and discussed the fundamental concepts of case law associated with Aboriginal title and rights to land and resources.
Project X
After weeks of studying data visuals, Rebels began choosing a topic to learn about in-depth. Using the Our World in Data website, they brainstormed and identified areas of interest from health to demographics and agriculture to education. In addition to choosing an important topic, it also needed to be significant in a world-historical context. Rebels narrowed their selections to genocide, natural disasters, and terrorism using a graphic organizer for assistance.
Chemistry
On Tuesday, Rebels began building a hydrometer to measure the density of different liquids. With a crucial piece of equipment missing, Launchpad Rebels used incredible problem-solving skills to create their own version! When their first several attempts failed, they persevered and, in the end, made a tool that worked perfectly for the intended purpose. The hydrometer was completed on Thursday, and after testing the density of several liquids, they hypothesized how a rise in temperature by 25 degrees Fahrenheit would impact the density of each substance.
Geography/Cartography
We began this session’s Canadian Geography and Cartography course brainstorming the topics and issues we are most interested in studying. Rebels spent the rest of the first class taking various quizzes to see just how much they knew about the physical geography of Canada and identified areas they wanted to study further. We will be utilizing ArcGIS throughout the course, so learners had time to become more familiar with the site on Tuesday. They completed a map journal activity that included data on Canada’s climate, ecology (ecozones), population density in 2016, landforms, and Federal election data from 2000-2019, manipulating the settings and answering a series of questions.
Additional Highlights
The campaign has begun! After weeks of preparation, Launchpad Rebels were able to start their Dungeons and Dragons campaign with the assistance of William. Other highlights included archery, productive core skills periods, and personal projects that increased the energy in the room!
Potential Discussion Ideas or Questions to Ask your Rebel:
Spark: What is the name of the planet you created? What does it look like? Can you share one special fact about it?
Spark: Would you like to travel to space? What planet would you want to see?
Spark French: What can you tell me about “un escargot”? (ess-car-go)
Discovery:
What is the 100 Point Project for Civilizations?
What is something you learned about Space from Quest this week?
What is the difference between perimeter and area?
Discovery French:
What words do you have on your vocabulary sheet?
How would you translate “une chauve-souris” (shove-soo-ree) in English?
Exploration:
Have you chosen a topic for your podcast? What do you think will be the most challenging part of the process?
Exploration French:
What is your favourite monster? What would you call it in French?
What questions would you like to ask your Pen Pal?
Launchpad: Tell me about the problem-solving process that occurred when building the hydrometer.
Launchpad: What was the most challenging part of planning and running the Walk for Wenjack? What was the most rewarding?
Dates of Interest
Pumpkin Run: Wednesday October 27th during P.E.
Halloween Costume Parade: 9:05 am Friday, October 29th with a celebration to follow during Fun Friday