Revel Recap: March 22 - 26, 2021

Spark Studio

Mindfulness & Launch

On Monday, we started our morning reading by There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Frog, which we found out at the end was a book about spring! We discussed what changes we will see outside during this new season, the weather we can expect, what activities we can do, and talked about animals that are born in the spring. We then completed a page in our story writing books, using the prompt “I know it’s spring when...” On Tuesday, the Sparks took their time and were so proud to show off their beautiful flower pictures during Circle Time. On Wednesday, we used our yoga spinner game to help lead our practice and determine which poses to do. The Sparks have learned many poses this year and are starting to recognize them by name. Ask your learner to show you some of their favourite poses! We ended our session with a fun yoga freeze dance, they have some pretty awesome dance moves! Thursday while listening to music we completed a duckling dot-to-dot picture and coloured it in. Then on Friday, we started with our conversation flashcards which help us to explore emotional situations by looking at the pictures and discussing what we think is happening and how the characters are feeling. We then finished our package to send off to our pen pals! We included our All About Me pages and a letter from all of us saying what our favourite food, favourite studio material, and favourite games are. We also included some stickers for our new pals! The envelope will be mailed this weekend and we are already eagerly awaiting their reply!

Quest

We began Quest this week by reading Iggy Peck, Architect to inspire us to think outside the box and see the artistry behind buildings and designs. In the book, Iggy creates really cool buildings out of things like chalk and diapers! We even recognized some of the buildings in the book, like the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Sydney Opera House. We talked about how engineers and architects use their imaginations to dream and design all types of buildings. Throughout the week we enjoyed reading and looking at pictures of several real-life examples of unique buildings and bridges. Our new challenge was to design a really fun and unique playground! We brainstormed some ideas and then got to work on designing a blueprint of the playgrounds. We then put them on the whiteboard to share and discuss with the studio. We had some really creative ideas, such as wild zipline rides, water slides, cars and trains to move around the park, and ball pits at the end of massive slides. It was so interesting to hear all their designs and we all agreed we would love to visit each other’s parks! Ask your learner to share with you some of the ideas they came up with. The rest of the week was spent building an amusement park out of gears. The kit contained 120 pieces and we needed to work together to follow the directions to build it. We built a carousel, Ferris wheel, bumper cars, and a roller coaster. The Sparks loved the handheld motor that controlled the amusement park. It was fun hearing the stories and play that happened after it was built.

French

This week in French class we started off on Monday with a new book called “Toutes les couleurs” written by Alex Sanders. It tells the story of a little rabbit who has a fun day outside and comes home covered in different colours! Now that we know the alphabet song very well, we have started practicing recognizing letters by themselves and spelling words that Mme Marie writes on the board. On Wednesday, we had a dance party to “Promenons-nous dans les bois” and “Joli Calao”, and we discovered an African version of “Tête, épaules, genoux et pieds.” We also read “3, 2, 1… Comptons les pommes!” on Thursday.

Additional Highlights

On some of the warm days this week, we enjoyed using chalk, chasing and popping bubbles, and playing basketball! We continued to enjoy making many mud creations, too! This week our read-aloud and discussions focused on spring and what we can expect from this season here in Ottawa. We are all excited for the warmer days ahead. We also discussed the new animals that may be born this season, which led to our inquiry into animal life cycles. We talked about how living things grow and change. As they grow, they go through many stages or sets of changes. These stages make up their life cycles. For example, we talked about how during spring, baby chicks may be born. We looked at and talked about the chicken’s life cycle and our favourite part was watching some videos of real baby chicks hatching from their eggs! The Sparks made chicken life cycle booklets, that they’d love to share with you! We also used forks to create some chicken paintings, which we will display next week. In our quest to celebrate all things spring, we also enjoyed painting some beautiful flower cards for the special people in our lives and making flowers on the light table with loose parts. One of the studio highlights this week was ending our day playing with one of the Sparks’ Flying Toothless Dragon toys. We took time to read the instructions and watch a video on how to take care of it. The goal was to get the dragon to trust us so that he would fly. After a couple of days, he took flight and it was a very exciting moment for the studio! We ended our week with a Fun Friday filled with games such as Candyland, Loopin’ Louie, and setting up a vet clinic for the puppet animals and dinosaurs!

Discovery Studio

Mindfulness

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday's yoga classes all welcomed spring! With the equinox over the weekend, we focused our practice around gratitude for warmer weather and more hours of sunshine. Tuesday and Thursday mornings were dedicated to zen doodles.

Launches and Closings

What makes a hero? On Monday after brainstorming the characteristics of a hero, we reviewed the Hero’s Journey and related it back to our year so far at Revel. We then took a cape and wrote down a “superpower” that we embody such as courage, kindness, and perseverance. During Monday’s closing, we spoke about French pastries with Mme Marie and we watched a funny video of children trying pain au chocolat, macaron, kouign amann, and éclairs for the first time. Tuesday’s launch welcomed some special spring flowers from artist Tucker Nichols’ incredible initiative, Flowers for Sick People. Rebels discussed how sickness in our physical or mental health can be linked to isolation. Since we can’t send flowers to every person in the world who deserves them, we took inspiration from Tucker Nichols and created some beautiful cards for anyone and everyone who deserves them. Tuesday’s closing was a spirited discussion about Biomimicry and Pokemon! Rebels participated in a heated debate about how animal features and adaptations helped inspire the popular anime characters and whether or not they would be able to survive if they existed in the real world. For Wednesday’s launch, we learned about one of the best bakeries in Paris, which delivers baguettes to the President weekly! The owner, Djibril, explained how to make a perfect baguette. Thursday’s Current Events discussed the Cherry Blossom Festivals in Japan and how the Coronavirus has impacted tourism globally, a Cockatoo who says “I Love You!” to his new roommate, and some funny quotes from Live From Snack Time. On Friday, we gathered to watch the Rodent Recap of the “Elite Trait” matchups from March Mammal Madness video! Is your champion still in the competition?

Rebel Readers & Warrior Writers

Monday’s Aim and Release Reader Writer class was dedicated to Holes and finishing our Informative Animal Essays. As we entered the final week of Session 5, Rebels sought peer feedback, worked on conclusion paragraphs, and edited their drafts to prepare them for submission next week. Everyone is also eagerly awaiting our Book and Film Club next week!

In Wednesday’s Draw and Anchor Reader Writer class, Rebels completed their first novel study - Pugs of the Frozen North. We worked away on our storyboard and began our Story Summaries and critiques to prepare for the Exhibition next week.

Friday, Rebels had the option to continue working on essays and any unfinished work for their Reader Writer badges, or participate in the Session 5 Jeopardy review. Jeopardy was a blast! Rebels did a great job and worked really well together! Congratulations to Team Big Brains for a risky “All In” Final Jeopardy that paid off big time!

Math Lab

In Math Lab this week, four of our Draw Rebels completed the subtraction Math Facts That Stick program, earning their badge! The other Rebels continued to work on their Math Facts That Stick division and subtraction packets before being challenged to complete some really fun and challenging Beast Academy puzzles! With each page, the level of difficulty increased but the Rebels worked together to finish quite a few of the problems! We ended our session with a fun “less than, equal, and greater than” game with flashcards and pool noodles in the gym.

Aim and Release Rebels reviewed all about angles including the differences between acute, right, obtuse, and straight angles as well as complimentary, supplementary, and vertical angles. We then tackled a Beast Academy puzzle packet that required Rebels to find their way through a maze using specific angles in a specific order. They were extremely challenging especially as they made their way through the puzzles. Great persistence!

Civilizations

To finish up this session’s Civilizations course, Rebels learned about life in Canada in the late 1800s and early 1900s including events leading up to World War 1 and the women’s suffrage movement. We will begin a more in-depth study of the Great Wars and the first half of the 20th century next session.