Revel Recap: October 31 to November 4, 2022

Spark Studio

Mindfulness

Our Halloween Monday started with a lot of energy and excitement! The Sparks loved seeing all Rebels’ costumes and making their red carpet debut! Afterward, we headed into the studio and completed a festive directed drawing of a pumpkin and a ghost. On Tuesday, we listened to a farm animal story. It was about a rooster who moos and meets three other animals who make different noises than their animal families. This story was about celebrating individual differences, and we reiterated that each animal (and Spark!) is unique and special. On Wednesday, we went on a yoga adventure with a farm theme and Thursday, we completed a colour-by-shape picture of a barn. We had to identify the shape and look at the key to determine which colour to use. Friday, we began our day with breathing exercises and then reflected on our trip to Valleyview Little Animal Farm last week. We ended our weekly mindfulness by illustrating and writing about our favourite part of our field trip.

Quest

Welcome to Farm Animal Week! We started this week’s Quest by completing a K-W-L chart (Know, Want to Know, Learned). As a group, we shared all of the knowledge we already had about farms. We then shared any questions we were hoping to answer this week. Some of the questions the Sparks are wondering about include, “Do any farm animals fly?” “Why are baby chicks wet when they are born?” Does the farmer sleep on the farm?” “Do all farms have animals?” One question left the class divided, “Can ducks fly?” We read a National Geographic book introducing us to various farm types. We then listened to farm animal sounds to see if we could identify them. Next, we learned about the different parts of a cow. Some new words included the part of the cow’s head called the muzzle and the udder, where milk comes from. We each coloured in a cow and labelled the parts.

On Tuesday, we started with a This-or-That game, farm animal edition! Next, we read a very informative book called I Wonder Why Farm Animals. This book discussed many farm animals and answered three interesting questions about each. The Sparks then travelled around the school to survey all of the other Rebels and guides, “Which farm animal is your favourite?” They recorded the answers on a bar graph, and once they returned with their answers, we looked at the data as a group. Which animal was Revel’s favourite? Least favourite? We then illustrated our favourite farm animal to wrap up our day.

We read a book about farm babies on Wednesday and learned about farm animal families. We worked as a group to create a collaborative poster, identifying the type of animal and the names of the father, the mother, and the baby.

Thursday, we read Otis and the Scarecrow before watching a quick video about what life is like for a farmer. We imagined and shared what we would grow and what animals we would have if we had our own farm. We then completed a Dancing Milk experiment where we posed the question, Does the amount of fat in milk affect how much it dances? We went through the materials and the procedure and then made a prediction (hypothesis) about what would happen. The most popular guess was that the milk was going to explode! We used 2% milk, fat-free milk, and whipping cream and added drops of food colouring into each. We put Q-Tips in dish soap and placed them into the milk to observe what occurred. Ask your scientist what we observed! To wrap up Quest this week, we used cocoa, flour, and water to make mud. We then put our farm animals in the mud and enjoyed the sensorial experience of messy play!

French

On Halloween Monday, we read Help a Witch!, a book full of hiding places and doors to open. It was a fun way to review our Halloween words one last time. Over the next three days, we took on a week-long project of colouring and cutting out Mr. Rabbit and then dressing him up to practice our clothing and colour vocabulary. The Sparks were very focused!

Math

This week’s math centre activities echoed our farm theme. Both groups worked with dice this week, with Group One rolling a die and colouring a farm animal with the matching number. Meanwhile, Group Two worked on addition facts with a farm-themed board game.

Literacy

During our morning work periods, the Sparks could complete farm word searches and match farm sentences to pictures. Some learners made letters out of loose parts, while others practised writing with the chalkboard. We also completed another character chart, helping us to be more observant of the small details that make up stories.

We started our Friday Storytelling Workshop reading The Cow That Laid An Egg. We identified the setting, characters, conflict, and resolution. We then set out with partners to use the loose parts to create a farm as a setting and farm animals as our characters. There were some very elaborate setups and exceptional oral storytelling happening. It’s a joy to observe this memorable activity in the studio.

Geography

This week was all about the coldest, windiest, and driest continent, Antarctica! We located it on our map and globe, noting the distance from Canada. We watched a short National Geographic for Kids clip to learn some fun facts and see pictures of this continent’s landscape. We observed all the snow and ice and our favourite animal that lives there, the penguin! We learned how they huddle together to protect the babies and keep warm during the cold, dark winters. The Sparks thought this was so cute! We then coloured in the continent with the animals you would find there.

Art

While you can find learners creating masterpieces all week long, in our special art class, we made sheep, horses, pigs and cows with paper plates! We are excited to show you our final result at Exhibition!

Additional Highlights

What a fun Halloween! We started our morning excitedly showing our friends our costumes before debuting them to our families on the red carpet. Set out throughout the day were pumpkin crafts and Halloween-themed colouring pages. In the afternoon, we had so much fun trick-or-treating around the school. Thank you, Exploration, for setting this up for us! We enjoyed a treat together while talking about all the plans we had later that night.

We loved seeing Sparks’ bravery and acting skills this week playing animal charades. We ended with Show and Tell, Fun Friday activities, and Character Call-outs. Get ready, learners; next week’s theme is under the sea!

Discovery Studio

Mindfulness

We had a fantastic Halloween costume red carpet event on Monday morning, bringing the studio energy WAY up! After this, we met as a team in the launch space to calm our minds and bodies to connect and take turns sharing highlights from our weekends. For Talk-it-Out Tuesday, the Rebels used the Our Moments conversation cards to discuss their dreams. For example, where would it be if they could travel anywhere in the world? Wednesday, the Rebels continued to make excellent progress on their map of Canada puzzle and Thursday, they added several more leaves to their Gratitude Tree. Friday's feel-good vibes were musical this week! We got out the Boomwhackers and played along to Katy Perry's song "Firework."

Launches

We started the week by reviewing our studio Rebel Buck balances and considering possible trends. Recognizing that many of us are missing opportunities to earn points from our SMART goals, we took time on Tuesday to set these in Journey Tracker before heading into Core Skills. On Wednesday, we discussed expectations, strategies, and studio rewards for participating in the IOWA assessments and Thursday, we tried our first KnowledgeHook Gameshow. This is kind of like a Kahoot, but it was all about the Rebels practicing time-telling with analog clocks. Friday's Current Events report included an update on the school strikes, a clip about Daylight Savings Time, and a feature about the first women's gymnastics team's recent bronze medal win!

Reader/Writer

Rebel Readers: This week's CAFE strategy related to C for Comprehension. As we continued to read our studio novel Fatty Legs, we considered all the ways a reader can Monitor and Fix-Up their understanding. Rebel Readers should often pause and consider if what they are reading makes sense, and if not, they can try to summarize the text, go back and adjust the rate at which they read, and read on to see whether the information becomes clear or skim and scan the selection to gain meaning. It may not be a good-fit book if it still doesn't make sense. If it is required reading for a project, another way to work through a block is to ask for help!

Warrior Writers: The Warrior Writers continued to work on their drafts, bringing with them from Quest last week a deeper understanding of how geologists might catalogue rock samples based on their properties like lustre or hardness. We combined this with a discussion on important parts of speech, especially adjectives and adverbs, and how these would help us better describe each sample and explain exactly how we determined the identifications. During Friday's Wrap-Up, the Rebels worked on another Ten Minute Tale with an emphasis on adding adjectives and adverbs to their journal entries.

French

On Tuesday, we had a fun "Search and Find," where Rebels had to locate all kinds of objects in the drawing of a haunted house. They then had to draw a haunted house by listening to Mme. Marianne's instructions and clues in French! On Thursday, we listened to a video about kitchen objects and furniture and started to plan the construction of our dream house model. In our French Cooking workshop, we made a big fruit salad! The Rebels are getting so good at peeling fruits and vegetables!

Civilizations

This week's chapter of our story took the Rebels through the weakening of the Roman Empire, starting with its separation into the Western and Eastern regions with two distinct emperors. We mapped the two areas, noting the two capital cities of Rome and Constantinople, respectively. While listening, the Rebels tuned in to five buzzwords and used context clues to explain their meaning and connect to the story: disobedient, rebellion, tartan, constantly, and barbarians. We had a lively Socratic discussion afterwards about the attitude of the time that it would have been embarrassing for the Romans to be defeated by the Celtic warrior queen Boadicea.

Math Lab

On Wednesday, the Rebels met to share their problem-solving from last week. They had an excellent congress conversation about the standard units used to measure distance and other linear dimensions, such as centimetres, metres, and kilometres or inches, feet, and miles. Many wanted to do a "Show and Tell," modelling how they used other found tools like link cubes, books, shoes, or string to measure items around the studio. They also discussed scales and how we can use smaller increments to represent real-life size increments, like on a map, when planning a road trip. After catching up from last week, we started a lab on telling time. During Friday's congress, we practiced using an analog clock face to the nearest minute and used context clues to select between am and pm.