Revel Recap: January 24 - 28, 2022
Spark Studio
Mindfulness
With Wednesday being Bell Let’s Talk day, the Sparks Studio focused on feelings and emotions all week. The Guides read stories such as Wild Feelings by David Milgrin, and Right now, I am Fine by Dr. Daniela Owen. These books encouraged the Sparks to share their feelings and let them know that it’s OK to express themselves and be who they are. The studio also shared ideas for putting themselves in a better state of mind. For example, one Spark spoke about writing their feelings down, crumbling up the paper, and tossing it away. On Monday, the Sparks also worked on affirmations, repeating a couple shared by the guides then splitting up to create their own. As a group, everyone then shouted all of our affirmations together, helping us feel heard and empowered. Other mindfulness activities included; yoga, gratitude journals, colouring, and painting with watercolours.
Quest
What are properties in science? Ask the Sparks and they will gladly tell you; colour, size, weight, shape, temperature, and texture. On Monday, the Sparks also talked about states of matter. The Sparks discussed how the particles look different in each container based on if it’s a gas, liquid, or solid. In one experiment, the Sparks were tasked with labelling six objects based on their state of matter, and everyone collaborated beautifully!
On Tuesday, the guides introduced and reviewed measurement before setting the Sparks loose on a series of challenges to measure various objects with a ruler. They also were split into groups and used loose parts to measure the height of their peers. Wednesday, the Sparks learned about weight. The studio created a set of scales using cups, string, and a paper tube. Using wooden pattern blocks, the Sparks weighed a variety of blocks. It was great to see everyone working so well together. On Thursday, we learned more about texture and shape. The Sparks got super creative and made their own Properties Monster. We have awesome imaginations in the studio, and the creations brought out lots of smiles! We ended thee week with temperature. As a group, the Sparks engaged in conversation about how our senses can also detect temperatures. This week’s quest was a lot of fun, and it was great to add in many scavenger hunts, such as a Texture Hunt. The Sparks worked hard looking for certain textures and did a great job learning about two-dimensional and three-dimensional shapes.
French
This week, the Sparks learned about la lettre R and la lettre S. We began on Monday by reading the date, and each Spark came up to the board to write the letter R. Then, we guessed five words beginning with R from Mme Marie’s drawings: robe, requin, robot, rat and ruban. Finally, we followed Didou’s step-by-step instructions to draw a robot. We found it pretty cool that “robot” is spelt the same in French and in English! On Tuesday, we read a book called “Rouge de colère,” which helped us add three words to our letter R list: rouge, rose, and raisin. We also filled out our letter R sheet. Wednesday’s class followed Monday’s model, but with the letter S. We guessed the words soleil, serpent, sourire, singe, and savon. Then, we began filling out a large snake alphabet poster, which we finished on Thursday while watching an episode of “64, rue du Zoo” about a pair of monkeys who love to pull pranks.
Additional Highlights
This week we were excited to celebrate our first in-person Spark birthday! We lit a candle to represent the sun, and the Spark walked around the sun with the globe, to represent the Earth moving around the sun and the passing of years. Each time He walked around the sun, he would stop to tell us a story from each year.
With this week’s cold weather, the Sparks took part in many body breaks, played games in the gym such as Octopus and had several races against Ms. Kaitlin. They also took part in lots of stretching and physical movement between transitions.
Lastly, the Sparks truly enjoyed their Friday. Many Sparks wore their pyjamas and brought their stuffies and blankets to participate in the Twinkle Tea and Puzzle Party! Many Sparks said they wanted to come to school on the weekend because they want every day to be like this Friday!
Discovery Studio
Mindfulness
On Monday, we created chatterboxes in advance of Bell Let's Talk Day and started to discuss one of the prompts, "Do you know what mental health supports and services are available in your school?" Tuesday's yoga practice involved hip-opening poses like crescent moon, core-strengthening through plank holds, and stress alleviating pranayama with lion's breath! The Rebels listened to chakra meditation music on Wednesday while quietly colouring mandalas. Thursday, we had a yoga practice led again by one of our Rebels featuring lots of twists for spine health, and on Friday, the Rebels continued their mural cubes from last week.
Launches
We are a community that believes "we are not alone," but are we a community that upholds the highest standards of teamwork and excellence? After watching a video that illustrated world-class teamwork (F1 pit stop crew, rowers, and windsurfers), we asked for ways to build a stronger team. Patience, assigning roles during work, and creating a contract to handle disagreements were all ideas the Rebels felt helped them work well together. During Tuesday's launch, Rebels answered the question "Qu'est-ce que tu aimes faire pour te sentir bien?" and shared different ways that they like to feel better when they're down. On Wednesday, we dug deeper into what causes stress, how some pressure can be motivational, what to do to manage stressors (focus on what you can control) and how to process stress (move, laugh, cry, create, talk it out, rest and eat well). The Rebels shared what stresses them out and how we can support each other's mental health on our Let's Talk board. One of our Squad Leaders led a launch on Thursday about nature and its benefits for our wellbeing. Thank you for such a relevant and thoughtful discussion! Friday's Current Events report was also Rebel-led, featuring: CBC Kids News #goodnews about Taco the miracle chihuahua, a stunning image of an exploded star created using NASA's X-Ray Polarimetry technology, another round of who is cuter (fox edition: Fenix vs. Red), and five athletes to scout before the upcoming Olympics.
French
This week, Rebels continued exploring techniques and vocabulary related to visual arts. We began with an interactive Nearpod presentation that allowed us to practice the vocabulary of shapes and colours and introduce words pertaining to the parts of the face. Our objective for this week was to learn more about portraits, and we took inspiration from Michael Volpicelli's work. Volpicelli created portraits of celebrities such as Malala and IZ using words related to their lives and personalities. Rebels had two options for this week's assignment: starting from an outline of a face (theirs or somebody else's), they had to fill up their portraits with either words related to that person or with the French words for each part of the face. We're excited to show the results at our end-of-session Exhibition!
Reader/Writer
As we are focused on discussing our feelings and mental health this week, our poetry session echoed these conversations. Rebels chose to either write a cinquain or a diamante poem using their emotions or mental health as the topic. Rebels utilized an online thesaurus to discover "juicier" vocabulary to help paint more explicit pictures throughout our period. Some also had time to read over a peer's work to give feedback on their content, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar.
After reading the book Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox, Draw and Anchor Rebels took time to journal about an animal they identified with at the moment. We then reviewed the plot of The Wizard of Oz before learners began re-writing the story from the character of their choice's point of view. Learners will present their angle in a puppet show in a few weeks!
Math Lab
This week, Draw and Anchor Rebels continued to work through the Be A Farmer activities, focusing on telling time using analog clocks and creating a schedule to complete all their chores. They used clock manipulatives to investigate how the hour hand moves as they increase the minutes, understanding how it may be tricky to tell the time when it is closer to a new hour as the hour hand will be pointing more towards the new hour than the current hour.
The Aim and Release Rebels had to secure their venue this week, considering four factors for four different possible locations. Based on rental costs, venue size, and proximity to hotels and restaurants, they made calculations to determine which venue would meet their needs within their given budget, with 25,000 square meters of space, hotel capacity for at least 200 guests, and a minimum of 15 nearby restaurants.
Civilizations
This week the Rebels visited the Assyrian Empire circa 668 BCE. We learned that this empire was ruled by the king Ashurbanipal and though he mistreated and conquered many peoples, he was also the first librarian! We discussed whether his actions caused more harm than good overall, with some Rebels arguing that we can benefit from his innovation (the library) and learn from his mistakes (selfish expansion).
Quest
Rebels explored the concept of "share-worthy" this week as it relates to digital media. Working with their squads they used a flowchart to determine if the media in question was definitely, maybe, or probably not share-worthy based on whether or not they thought it was real, well-made, news or opinion, based on facts or not, biased, entertaining or raised awareness. The Rebels also discussed strategies to help determine how credible digital media is through the Reality Check game by Media Smarts. On Tuesday, the Rebels used the DECIDE Framework to work through conflict resolution for characters from stories by Trudy Ludwig. Each story presents a common issue, like when teasing can become bullying or false/forced apologies that don't make things better. We also began to discuss the concept of relational aggression as a form of bullying when "friends" might exclude someone from a group. Wednesday's Writer Workshop focused on editing with CUPS. Rebels returned to their Venus flytrap drafts to check Capitalization, Usage of words, Punctuation and Spelling. There was also a journal entry asking Rebels to reflect on mental health and what it means to them, encouraging them to describe how they feel using the best word possible to match their emotions with the help of a word wheel. With many posters from Week 3 finalized, the Rebels voted on the most excellent work based on purpose, message and conventions.
Physical Development
Major perks of our location? We have an ice rink and sledding hill right in our backyard! On Monday, one group had a great time playing and sledding down Carlington Hill while the other learners did yoga and played dodgeball. Wednesday was chilly, but a group went skating on the rink, another went for a hike, and the rest played in the gym.
Additional Highlights
A small team of Rebels have banded together as the 10-minute Reflex Group and the 20 minute Khan/BEAST Club. They meet every morning at the beginning of Core Skills to crush their math goals together! As a studio, the Rebels earned another 45 percent in Math Core Skills this week, for 90 overall so far in the KHANtest. Next week: 135% is the goal!
Thursday's round of Body Talks was fantastic! Rebels learned more about the topics they voted on through a series of TEDEd videos and discussions. Aim and Release explored the complex digestive system of the human body and how it works to absorb nutrients and convert them into energy and protein we need. They also discovered where body odour comes from and the different factors that contribute to it, wondering if we could avoid bacteria somehow if the fats and proteins we sweat could be repurposed somehow? Finally, we discussed how hormones regulate body processes, from signalling digestion to important changes to the body and reproductive system as we go through puberty. Draw and Anchor talked through two topics: ageing and skin. They understood that diet, exercise, medicine, and the environment are some of the factors that impact how we age and asked great questions about the science of cell regeneration! The Rebels described skin as a protector of the body and wondered if all microorganisms commonly found on the skin's surface are harmful? Next week we will focus on the BRAIN!
Friday’s Lights-Out-Twinkle-Party with the Sparks was so much FUN!!!
Exploration Studio
Launches
Almost all of our launches and closings were run by learners this week. On Tuesday, a learner ran our daily opener on the topic of frostbite, inspired by a recent cross country skiing trip she took, telling us the signs and symptoms as well as treatments and prevention methods. On Wednesday, two Rebels worked together to coordinate their launch and closing, planning an introduction to world-building. Each learner had a piece of paper in which the two leaders slowly introduced considerations that people may want to add to their world. On Thursday, another learner led a discussion on casinos and the potential pros and cons they bring to a community. On Monday, we talked about the upcoming Bell Let's Talk Day, learning about the corporation's donations over the years. We learned that Bell has donated less than .2% of its profits to mental health initiatives over the past ten years and how businesses can appear to be more charitable as a marketing technique while also receiving tax benefits. We finished the closing by talking about the Youth Services Bureau, a local non-profit specializing in youth counselling and other mental health initiatives.
Mindfulness
Your learner may have shared that they have participated in a guide-led mindfulness session once a week since November. The need for the guide-led mindfulness was partly due to some of the learners not being sure how to make the most of the 15 minutes of mindfulness each morning. A mindfulness practice has been shown to reduce stress, anxiety, and improve focus, all things that are acutely becoming problems in our world. Each learner is part of a group that meets once a week, and this week we talked about anchor strategies. The learners drew a ship out at sea and then drew a storm coming in. We talked about how we are a ship, and sometimes a storm will come, so we wrote down some of the emotions we would feel in a storm and what sort of things cause those emotions. We then talked about how an anchor helps a ship during times of calm and battery, and the learners drew their anchor. We talked about how mindfulness is about building our anchor and our trust in it. Techniques that we have covered in the past like breathing, stretching, journaling, and gratitude help make our anchors stronger, and when we practice them during times of calm, we can trust them to be there in times of a storm.
Math Lab
"No, a divisor is not what keeps da sun out of your eyes!" That's right, this week we reviewed long division! After going over the steps (divide, multiply, subtract, bring down), we made sure to cover problems with remainders as well as taking it further and creating a decimal. Rebels then took the rest of Math Lab to work either collaboratively or independently on a series of long division problems to practice the steps and become more confident.
French
This week, Rebels continued exploring techniques and vocabulary related to visual arts. We began with an interactive Nearpod presentation that allowed us to practice the vocabulary of shapes and colours and introduce words pertaining to the parts of the face. Our objective for this week was to learn more about portraits, and we took inspiration from Michael Volpicelli's work. Volpicelli created portraits of celebrities such as Malala and IZ using words related to their lives and personalities. Rebels had two options for this week's assignment: starting from an outline of a face (theirs or somebody else's), they had to fill up their portraits with either words related to that person or with the French words for each part of the face. We're excited to show the results at our end-of-session Exhibition!
Quest
This week, we centred our Quest launches on shopping and how our cities reflect our habits. A significant focus of the discussion was the nearby Westgate Shopping Centre and its history as Ottawa's oldest mall. We talked about how malls became a focal point of a post-war world with cars, cash, highways, and consumer wants. Shopping trends have changed, which can be seen in the failing nature of malls, especially a once-great Westgate. But changes are coming. We looked at the models of what the mall will look like in the future compared to what it looks like now, noting the decreasing parking lots, increasing apartment buildings for our intensifying city, and increase in green space. We even reached out to the design company in charge of the re-imagined Westgate for questions.
The remaining Quest time was used as work periods in which the learners executed on the Gantt charts they made last week. The learners were all working on various aspects of their model cities and many different mediums. Ask your learner how their model city is coming along as we enter the final week of their models!
Documentary
The learners had two long periods of work on their documentaries, trying to reach the goals they set for this session. We are working towards a Showcase of Learning for the end of this session, where learners are encouraged to reflect on their project's failures up to this point. This idea came from a learner who wanted everyone to get advice from the other groups on the problems they faced and how they overcame those challenges.
Physical Development
Major perks of our location? We have an ice rink and sledding hill right in our backyard! On Monday, one group had a great time playing and sledding down Carlington Hill while the other learners did yoga and played dodgeball. Wednesday was chilly, but a group went skating on the rink, another went for a hike, and the rest played in the gym.
ADDITIONAL HIGHLIGHTS
You are never too old to be read to! When we were learning remotely, Erin began reading Amari and the Night Brothers to a group of interested Exploration Rebels. Now that we’re back in the studios, the group meets each Wednesday and Thursday during DEAR to continue the exciting read-aloud.
Launchpad
Now that we’re back in the swing of things in the studio, we tackled the challenges we are facing with our personal mental health. With the rising rates of anxiety and depression we’re witnessing in our community, we spent significant time throughout the week discussing our struggles and potential action items to improve our outlook. We all decided to drink more water, take more breaks outside, and find ways to become more social. On Wednesday, we coloured mandalas together and spoke about what helps us when we are feeling overwhelmed or distraught.
Is a status quo of civility the best thing to move society forward - or could something be gained by allowing space for dissent and deviation? After listening to a brief talk by Malcolm Gladwell, Launchpad discussed how and when we most need people in society willing to shake things up and how teaching kids in schools that it is OK and even essential to be rebellious, questioning, or skeptical. We also learned about the five stages of Tribal Leadership according to Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright. After going over the different stages, we assessed where we felt Revel was, and after choosing Stage 4 - “We’re Great!” we brainstormed ways to get to Level 5 - “Life is Great!” Due to the incoming Truck Convoy protesting vaccine mandates, we also spent time researching the reasoning behind the protest, the likelihood of extreme groups co-opting the rally, and discussing the effects on the downtown businesses, police department, local and federal government, and citizens.
Chemistry - Science & Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science
After reviewing what makes a robust experimental question and how to write a specific hypothesis, we completed two separate labs. The first was a quantitative study of the temperature changes that occur when you mix materials of different temperatures. While we intuitively knew that hot beverages cool when we add a cold liquid to them, it was worth rigorously investigating this to understand better where the heat actually goes. We also investigated the relationship between temperature and our perception of flavour. In our second experiment, we made observations about our perceptions of odour and taste and collected and compared results related to the intensity of flavours at different temperatures. We then completed a series of practice problems. We had to determine the specific heat capacity of a few other substances and conclude why it is easier to overcook in water than in oil. We also used the 4-4-9 rule to calculate calories, found the mass given density and volume, and calculated q released and absorbed in various scenarios, mainly involving ice or marshmallows, liquid nitrogen, and a mouth! It was then on to Module 3, Phase Transitions. We began learning about latent heat, the heat needed for phase changes based on the substance and the type of transition. We ended our week with a fun “Eggs-periment” as we used the sous vide method to cook eggs at various temperatures to find our perfect egg!
Canadian History
We began our week reading about battles at sea, the Home Front, the Conscription Crisis and the end of the First World War. Rebels then were chosen to be on a panel to discuss the impact of the First World War on Canada’s development. One learner was asked to defend George Woodcock’s position while the other, that of Jonathan Vance. After preparing their arguments, they presented them for further discussion at Wednesday’s closing. Both learners did a great job of ensuring that they referred to specific groups of people in their debate, including women, Indigenous, and soldiers. Great job! To tie up our study of the First World War, learners chose one of two culminating activities. The first was to create a flow diagram around the assassination of Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, linking events that led up to the assassination and what resulted from it. The second was to write a letter home as a nurse or a soldier explaining why so many soldiers are being killed or wounded based on technology and trench warfare research. The letter would also need to bracket any parts that the wartime censors would have “inked out” of the letter.
Accounting
This week, we reflected on one of the most important aspects of any business, Profitability! After answering a series of questions regarding how decisions can positively or negatively affect the profit, learners recognized that the Income Statement provides the most transparent profit picture of the three financial statements. However, it is said that cash runs the business, not profits, so which is more important? Learners discussed their reasoning and came up with a few strategies a company could put in place to increase their profit and ways to avoid fluctuations in profit week by week.
Additional Highlights
We saw two significant acts of bravery this week! One Rebel put themselves out there and entered a poetry competition, while another sought out a new Dungeons and Dragons group to join! With each step, these learners find their path and gain their stride! (Can you tell we are proud of them?!)
after-school Programming
Our After-School Enrichment Programming is well underway! This week, Rebels asked to compete in a Rubik’s Cube Mosaic competition, played chess, poker, learned to code a new game, made fresh pasta, created works of art, and practiced their Spanish!
Potential Discussion Ideas or Questions to Ask your Rebel:
Spark:
What are the six properties we discussed in Quest?
Can you tell me about your Properties Monster?
French: Do you know any words that are spelled the same in English and French?
Discovery:
What does mental health mean to you? What ways do you have to manage stressors and work through big feelings?
What makes media share-worthy?
When we experience conflict, how does the DECIDE Framework help us problem-solve?
Aim and Release Reader/Writer: On a scale of 1 to 10, how are you enjoying The Goldfish Boy? Who do you think took Teddy?
Draw and Anchor Reader/Writer: Which character from the Wizard of Oz did you choose to retell the story?
French: Which option did you pick for your portrait? What resources did you use to find the vocabulary you needed?
Exploration:
How do you feel the city of Ottawa should handle the protest this week? What would you do if you owned a business in the downtown core?
French: Which option did you pick for your portrait? What resources did you use to find the vocabulary you needed?
Launchpad:
What were the costs and benefits of the First World War on Canada as a country?
What temperature was your Perfect Egg? Are there any other temperatures you’d like to try?
How are you feeling about the current workload in Launchpad?
As we head into the second half of the year, what topics would you like to see covered?