Revel Recap: April 19 - 23, 2021
Spark Studio
This week we continued to start our calls with warm-ups which included mindfulness exercises, stretching and movement and our first-ever chair yoga! We tried some of our favourite poses such as cat, cobra, mountain, tree, dancer and child’s pose while in our chair.
We had a busy week in Quest! We started off by reading The Curious Garden. This is a beautiful book about a boy who lives in a city with no gardens, trees, or greenery. Everyone in the city stays inside, however, a curious little boy begins exploring and discovers some wildflowers. He begins to care for the plants and eventually the gardens spread through the city! We imagined that we had discovered a place with no plants and wrote and illustrated what we would like to plant there. The Sparks shared flowers, vegetables, and a fruit that they would like to plant. This week we are working on planting with grass seed. Our first project was to decorate our cups with faces and plant our grass seed to grow as hair. We will be measuring how tall the grass grows before giving our plant friend a haircut! We are also exploring whether plants need light to grow and which liquid is best for plants through more grass seed experiments. We will be observing and monitoring these experiments over the next couple of weeks and will discuss our results as time progresses.
Through reading and discussions, we also learned more about the parts of a plant, specifically the importance of the roots and stem. From there, we looked at the parts of a flower and drew and labelled flower pictures to share. We also completed a Parts of a Flower booklet, looking at the flower as a whole and then identifying the petals, stamens, pistil, and receptacle and the function of each part.
One of the highlights this week was completing a Sink vs. Float activity. The Sparks made their predictions and then we tested it to find the results. We also celebrated and discussed the importance of Earth Day and how we can take care of this beautiful planet. Our math activity this week was completing skip counting by twos and we were challenged to find items around the house that we can group together to practice this form of counting. During Show and Tell we brainstormed some possible questions we could ask each other after sharing. The learners did a great job using these questions to spark more conversation! We hope the Sparks have been having fun completing some of the activities on the choice boards.
This week in French class we read “Le roi, sa femme et le petit prince,” a book by Mario Ramos inspired by a popular french rhyme. Another new book that we read this week was “Solo le Soleil.” It was a great opportunity to practice the vocabulary we know already: soleil, jaune, ballon, rouge, tornade, heureux, triste. On Wednesday, we had a Chasse aux Couleurs, where we went looking for different coloured objects around the house! On Thursday, the Sparks did an amazing job with a spelling game where Mme Marie spelled out words to write on a whiteboard. We spelled pomme (apple) and fleur (flower) together! We also had a dance party to an African version of “Tête, épaules, genoux et pieds” as well as “Joli Calao!”
Discovery Studio
Mindfulness
Monday, Wednesday and Friday’s yoga classes focused on the introduction and development of a new pose called Half Moon. As this is a slightly advanced position, Rebels were challenged with balance and breath work as each yoga session incorporated the move into our flows. We reminded ourselves that if we fall out of positions, that just means we’re challenging ourselves. Namaste, Rebels! Mindful colouring on Tuesday and Thursday included some beautiful Earth Day doodles!
Launches
After an awesome yoga session, Rebels had some time to chat about their weekend before diving into our Monday Launch. All Rebels were asked to fold a piece of paper into four rectangles. In section one they wrote their name, section two they wrote an inspirational quote or their current mantra, section three they wrote or drew their “Big Rock” goal for the session, and in the last section they wrote down how they would reward themselves if they were to reach the goal by their deadline. Rebels were then tasked with posting their piece of paper in their workspace to help motivate them throughout the next few weeks while working at home. Tuesday’s Launch was all about connecting through movement! Rebels put some of their acting skills to work as we played “Slow Motion Sally,” a fun activity to get a morning energy boost while working on our role play work from Process Drama Quest! Wednesday’s Launch with Mme Marie was Earth Day-themed. We talked about food waste at home and what we can do to limit how much food we throw away. We also watched a cooking video for pain perdu, a delicious French recipe (also known as French toast) meant to salvage bread that’s become hard. Thursday’s Current Events highlighted Earth Day and Rebels watched the trailer for a new nature documentary that was released in honour of Earth Day, The Secrets of Whales. We discussed how learning about animals is one way that we can help make our world a better place! We discussed the museum heist in Toronto that occurred earlier this week and had a great round of laughs from our favourite blog, “Live from Snack Time!” Friday’s Launch was a Ted-Ed Riddle led by one of our Rebels! The learners enjoyed problem-solving in 3 different situations, with several Rebels solving the riddle correctly!
Rebel Readers & Warrior Writers
Aim and Release Rebels kicked off our session with a fabulous Earth Day-inspired poem, “Sorry” by Prince Ea. We discussed some of the lines and poetic structures and strategies that Prince Ea used to make his words more powerful. Rebels worked on their first selection of poems using the Cinquain and Diamante structures in their poetry booklets. We had some incredible poems presented already and we look forward to watching the Rebels create more poetry over the next few weeks!
Draw and Anchor Rebels finished their Week 2 Spelling, focusing on “ou” and “ow” sounds. We then completed another amazing “Ten Minute Tales” activity and those who wanted to had the opportunity to recite their wacky and wonderful stories with the group! Ten Minute Tales have been an incredible way for Rebels to showcase their creative writing skills, creating a short story in 10 minutes that must incorporate 4 random objects that appear on the screen. We continued working on figurative language and exploring alliterations more in-depth. Using the names of different team members and then attempting to create sentences using alliterations starting with different letters of the alphabet. “Zebras zigzagging in Zimbabwe” was a highlight for the “Z” alliterations! Way to go, Rebels!
During Friday’s Reader Writer Challenge, Rebels worked on their Yearbook Biographies, selected and practiced new spelling words for their Week 3 spelling tests, completed any unfinished poems from their poetry books this week, and enjoyed listening and discussing the beautiful spoken word piece Earthrise by Amanda Gorman.
Quest
Quest was loaded with a ton of different process drama activities this week! We kicked off our first two workshops with the Ottawa Children’s Theatre as Rebels explored the concept of acting and role-play to prepare them for our upcoming project “The Wax Museum of Powerful People.” On Tuesday and Thursday, Rebels took a deep dive into Monologues and dramatic readings of scripts. Aim and Release Rebels split off into breakout rooms to perform various scenes from Secret Life of Pets, Harry Potter, Frozen, and Toy Story that showcased characters performing monologues. Draw and Anchor Rebels participated in various group readings of the classic fairytale, Little Red Riding Hood. Our teams did their best to play with voice intonation, facial expressions, dramatic pausing and other acting skills as they experimented with different types of roles within each script. As we closed out the week, Rebels performed their monologues for each other and offered each other some really great feedback. The objective for the “feedback session” was to help Rebels reflect more deeply on how they can bring their “Powerful Person” to life. We wrapped up week two with a discussion aiming to answer the question “What makes someone powerful?” Rebels took these discussion points to heart as they finalized their Powerful Person choices, as we will begin role selection, research and biographies for our Wax Museum Figures next week!
Math Lab
Draw & Anchor Rebels began Math Lab with a reading of the book, Measuring Penny. After discussing different forms of measurement, we began the second week of our Pet Store project. With the animals chosen and measured, we created our pet store layout using the measurements for each of our animals. Some Rebels even drew in where the food, toys, and cash register would be located in their store. We capped off our lesson with a pet-themed activity break that increased our heart rates and laughter!
This week in the Aim & Release Math Lab it was time to begin work on our Dream Treehouse designs! After going through all of the steps, Rebels were asked to practice on a blueprint, working on a proper scale, and finding the perimeter and area of a couple of components. Those who felt comfortable were then encouraged to choose or design their own template and begin their project. We can’t wait to see the treehouses take form over the next couple of weeks!
Civilization
We continued our study of the Great War in Civilizations this week. We began learning about Canada’s role in Somme and how the battle was considered by many Canadians to be the worst of World War 1 due to the high death toll. The Rebels then read about Vimy Ridge and how all four of the Canadian Corps fought together for the first time to deliver a major victory that had up till then eluded the Allies. When discussing Canada at Passchendaele, we debated the human cost and whether wars are ever justified. Our World War 1 study concluded with the last three months of the war, often called “The Hundred Days,” before reviewing the past two weeks with a Kahoot!
French
This week, Group 1 practiced talking about different types of weather, how it makes us feel and what activities we like to do when it’s sunny, rainy, windy, and stormy. We showed our knowledge of this topic by creating a short video on Flipgrid. Group 2 and Group 3 also created Flipgrid videos, but this time on an Earth Day related topic: Five Things We Can Do to Help the Planet. On Tuesday, Group 2 Rebels played a drawing game using their whiteboard to practice the vocabulary we’ve learned so far. On Thursday we all read a new poem together: “Printemps” by Karine Persillet. Then, Group 3 played “Tu préfères ça..ou ça?” and started working on a dictionary of springtime vocabulary that will come in handy for creating our own poems.
PE
Rebels were encouraged to get outside as much as possible this week while some chose to work on different P.E. activities from the Spring Fitness Challenge sheet. It is so great to see so many of our Rebels getting their movement in from home. All agreed that it is a great way to boost not only your physical health, but mental health too!
Additional Highlights
Our American Sign Language (ASL) Club reviewed the alphabet that was learned last week before learning 25 new signs. We practiced our fingerspelling by introducing ourselves and by spelling different words. Having a group to practice with has made learning this new language even more fun and we love seeing them use their signs outside of Elective! This week’s Art Elective created Earth Day Awareness posters. Rebels created beautiful artwork that we will post around the studios upon our return! We have also settled in nicely to our read-aloud schedule with a reading of the chapter book, George every Monday and Wednesday and picture books each Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.
Exploration Studio
Launches and Closings
During Monday’s Launch with Mme Marie we watched a video that explored ways to avoid food waste and keep ingredients fresh for longer. We also shared some of our own techniques. As promised, here is the recipe for pain perdu (French toast). Keep in mind that there are almost infinite ways to prepare French toast; for example, using cinnamon or vanilla flavoured sugar, or replacing the cream with milk. Tuesday we began our day debating “The Presidential Conundrum” in which a write-in candidate won the election however they do not meet the minimum age requirement to serve. What should be done? Minimum age requirements for elected officials as well as voting age were discussed in detail with most believing that one should be at least 30-years-old to become Prime Minister or the President while voting age should be lowered to at least 16. To activate our brains and have fun as a group, our day began with a series of short video riddles on Wednesday and Friday. The learners were quick to identify the solution in some, however, a few stumped us all. Our Rebel-led Earth Day launch on Thursday included a spoken word poem by Prince Ea and a call to action requesting that Rebels go for a walk and safely pick up some garbage in their neighbourhood or enjoy an electricity-free lunch and recess, if possible.
Math Lab
With last week’s Great Paper Roller Coaster introduction out of the way, this week Rebels used their Math Lab period to continue building. While many focused on creating the base, others decided to start making the pathway portion of their design. While time-consuming and mind-bending, this project has quickly become a favourite for some, as we have the opportunity to socialize while we work.
French
We started class on Monday with a game of “Tu préfères ça...ou ça?” in which we discussed if we’d rather be covered in hair or feathers! Then, we worked independently on a listening comprehension piece about the French language in Tunisia. Those of us who finished early had time to explore the activities and videos posted on “L’Oasis d’activités.” On Thursday, we created our first Flipgrid video of the session about three little (and big) things we do for the planet and two things we’d like to do more.
Quest
In our learner-run Drama Quest, the Rebel’s have really taken ownership and accountability of the session’s facilitation! Exploration Rebels have run the launches, planned the activities, and checked in on the scripts that fellow Rebels have begun writing. We also took part in our first workshop run by the Ottawa Children’s Theatre on Thursday. Our leader took us through some warm-up activities and drama games where we explored the tools an actor has in their tool shed and discussed how the remaining workshops will progress. This next week, Rebels will finish writing the scripts that their figure from history will deliver at the Exhibition!
Big History
In Big History this week, we continued our study of past cultures. On Tuesday, we began with a simulation viewing of how the Charles Bridge in Austria was made. The learners made predictions about how long the 500-metre bridge took to build, with no one guessing that it took 100 years! On Earth Day, we discussed the importance of holidays and traditions coupled together. Since Earth Day is a fairly new holiday (1970), we reviewed other more established days to note how we should participate in Earth Day. Movies, environmentally friendly food, donations, tough conversations, crafts, family get-togethers, buying an environmentally friendly product, and garbage pick-ups were all on the table for how people wanted to celebrate the Earth. The remainder of our Big History time was spent researching and creating the artifacts that are going to represent the cultures the learners chose to study.
Team Building
We had so much fun during our online team building session this week utilizing backyard.co. While we expected the learners to want to cycle through a few of the games available, they were so entertained by the first game that we played it for the full 45 minutes period, laughing the entire time! It has been requested that we continue using this platform for future team-building sessions and we suggest everyone who needs a game night with family or friends in a virtual environment to check it out.
Additional Highlights
Our American Sign Language (ASL) Club reviewed the alphabet that was learned last week before learning 25 new signs. We practiced our fingerspelling by introducing ourselves and by spelling different words. Having a group to practice with has made learning this new language even more fun and we love seeing them use their signs outside of Elective! This week’s Art Elective created Earth Day Awareness posters. Rebels created beautiful artwork that we will post around the studios upon our return!
Potential Discussion Ideas or Questions to Ask your Rebel:
Exploration: What traditions does your family have on Earth Day? What are some new ones you could start next year?
Exploration: How is your elective going? Do you feel like it is time well-spent? Do you need any support to identify deliverables and deadlines?
Exploration French: What are some things you’d like to do more to help the planet? Were you inspired by your classmates’ videos? What activities did you choose to explore in l’Oasis d’activités?
Discovery: What is alliteration? Can you give me an example?
Discovery: What component of remote learning is the best? What do you find the most difficult?
Discovery French: What was special about this week’s poem? What activities did you choose to explore in the Jardin d’activités?
Spark: How tall do you think your hair grass will grow? Do you think the grass seed kept in total darkness will grow? What do you think will happen to the grass seeds that are given liquids other than water?
Spark: What is one thing we can do as a family to help the Earth?
Spark French: Which was your favourite song to dance to during Thursday’s dance party? What are some moves you’ve made up for it?
The improvements on our new suite are underway!