Revel Recap: September 6 - 9, 2022
Spark Studio
Mindfulness
In the Spark Studio this year, the Guides have created a Mindfulness Corner. This corner was designed for learners to gravitate toward when needing to express or connect with themselves or enjoy a quiet moment of peace. To start the week, we began our morning sitting together, introducing ourselves, talking about our past year at Revel, our summer, and reading a story called, The Day you Begin by Jacqueline Woodson. This book illustrates that whenever you have a new beginning, you learn that each individual is different and that it is important to have the courage to share your own story. By encouraging this mindset right from the beginning, we hope that the Sparks will open up during Quest and free play, sharing their ideas. Wednesday Mindfulness in our Studio is when the Rebels will connect with their bodies during movement activities. This week was yoga. The Rebels had their yoga mats placed side by side, and many Rebels showed their Guides yoga poses they remembered from last year. They then followed along with a Cosmic Kids video. On Thursday, the Rebels peacefully coloured while listening to calm music. To end the week, we read a story called, The Grateful Book. This story focused on many different things for which to be grateful. During the read-aloud, the Sparks shared aloud before writing a sentence and drawing a picture in their gratitude journal.
Quest
Our first Quest of the year is focused on Creating the Culture. On Tuesday, the Rebels engaged in conversations with one another, reflecting on their summer break. We heard stories about swimming, birthday parties and Calypso fun! During our circle, the Guides offered loose parts (wooden circles/squares, stumps, popsicle sticks and wooden house frames), and the learners had to create an image from something they enjoyed doing over the summer. When they were finished, they each shared their designs with the other Rebels. They all did a wonderful job! As this session is centred on learning about who we are, they are working on a booklet representing themselves. On Tuesday, we read Be Who You Are by Todd Parr. This book talks about celebrating and being proud of our individuality. The fun, bold pictures inspired us to create our first page, where we had to draw a picture of ourselves. On Wednesday, we read All Are Welcome and discussed how we could make each other and anyone who visits feel comfortable and welcome in the Spark Studio. We then created the next page in our booklet about all the things we like the most. The learners had fun searching through and using stickers to represent their favourites. On Thursday, we read You Matter and answered the question, “What is your favourite part of you?” Friday was our Fashion Show! The Sparks had the courage to walk down the red carpet and show off their favourite outfits that made them feel their best! After, they each designed their outfits using many colourful materials.
French
This week we welcomed the Sparks to their first French class of the year! Some Sparks are new to the French language, while others were quick to show what they remembered from last year. To get to know one another, we played a few ball games in the gym and on Tuesday, we reviewed our numbers by playing “What time is it, Mr. Wolf?” Wednesday, we reviewed our colours with a colouring page, and on Thursday, we played Emotion Bingo to start learning how to express our emotions in French. We ended our week with DEAR in French, reading a book together as an entire studio.
Additional Highlights
Our first week was a success! We welcomed new Sparks, and our returning Sparks have done a wonderful job showing them around the school and the park and introducing them to one another. To kick off the week, we played the “Name Game.” Everyone gathered around and passed our Squishmallow to each other and said their name followed by what they did over the summer.
The Sparks also worked on many art activities, such as painting, colouring, and using playdoh. We are engaging in geography each Thursday in our studio and will focus on the continents this session. The Sparks love the Continent Song and always ask, “Can you play it again?!” All together, everyone worked to play Hide and Seek with the continent map pieces and talked about the order of the continents from largest to smallest. There has been lots of gym time this week and disco light parties in the studio. To end the week, during Fun Friday, the whole school got together and played team-building games.
Lastly, the Sparks have brought so much bravery, laughter, and kindness into the studio this week, and the Guides can’t wait to see how much growth will be made throughout the year!
Discovery Studio
Mindfulness
Is there a difference between being quiet and being mindful? The Discovery Rebels started their year by discussing the concept of mindfulness itself! They agreed that the activities we do to begin our school day should be about clearing and calming our minds and bodies before it is time to work. The tricky part is, sometimes, quiet does not equal mindfulness. One Rebel shared, for example, that sitting quietly while ruminating on negative or angry thoughts does not help you get ready for work. Each day, we explored different aspects of mindfulness to develop a menu of our favourite and most effective activities. On Tuesday, we did a guided visualization meditation, imagining ourselves exploring a quiet beach by the ocean. Wednesday morning, we tried to list five things we like about ourselves and focus on developing a mindset of self-love and acceptance. This was a challenging exercise, so on Thursday morning, we got inspired by some positive affirmations. On Friday, we tried mindful movement with some yoga and a run on the red carpet!
Launches
Launches are designed to do one (or more) of three things: connect, equip, or inspire us. This is a very special part of the Revel schedule. On Tuesday, our goal was to connect as we read the story Our Class is a Family by Shannon Olsen. Even though (most of us) aren't related, the idea that we are creating a family or tribe in Discovery and that we will lean on and learn from each other this year is central to the first session. Wednesday's launch was designed to equip: we looked into the growth mindset and what to say instead of "I don't know." For example, "Can I have more time to think about it?" or "Can I consult with someone else?" At Thursday's launch, we discussed building trust and considered the question: do people share because they sense a safe space, or does sharing create a safe space? On Friday, we gathered for the Current Events report, featuring; the legacy of the Queen, waiting to get to the moon, and the closing of the Banksy 360 art exhibit.
Reader/Writer
On Friday, we explored our theme for this session's workshops: the river. The Rebels briefly discussed the metaphor "my life is a river" and then had 15 minutes to write as much as they could in their journals. We will focus on building stamina for writing this session through this extraordinary autobiographical piece. Next week on Monday, we will launch our Rebel Readers Café!
French
We began our year practicing our conversational French. This week we played games to get to know each other better and learn to introduce ourselves. We then took a quiz in French about our hobbies and favourite things and then played the game, "Do you prefer This or That?"
French Workshop - Cooking
Every week, Discovery Rebels will have the opportunity to participate in an extra French workshop. Based on interest, in this session, we will cook in French! The Rebels must find their favourite recipe for next week, and then we will make a recipe all together throughout the session!
Math Lab
In this first session, the Rebel Mathematicians will dive deep into Growth Mindset! During Wednesday's lab, we watched a series of videos from Jo Boaler and learned about the science behind believing in your ability to learn maths. We have four mantras that will take us through the year: 1) Everyone can learn math. 2) Every time I practise math, my brain changes. 3) Mistakes help me learn math. and 4) Warning: Brain Crossing! We saw that combining words, pictures, numbers and symbols will light up more parts of our brain and make deeper connections. The Rebels then chose between five tasks and practiced showing their thinking in their lab notebook. Some solved algebra puzzles with subtraction or multiplication, while others investigated time or made geometric patterns using skip counting. One Rebel said it best when she said, "Failure is the first step to perfection." During Friday's congress, the Rebels shared their work from the lab and participated in a number talk using a problem string.
Civilizations
This week we travelled back in time to the rise of Julius Caesar! The Rebels created a map showing Caesar's journey from Rome to Spain, where he gained experience before becoming a consul in Rome later in life. We discussed whether the Rebels thought Caesar was stubborn or heroic based on his actions and whether they would vote for him or Cinncinatus. Each week they have different ways to earn their badge through participation in deep discussions, noting important locations and events maps and timelines, playing vocabulary buzz rounds, and creating thematic artwork.
Quest
This session's Quest is called "Create the Culture." Week 1, was all about getting to know ourselves and embarking on our Hero's Journey. On Tuesday, the Rebels watched What is a hero? and made a badge to mark their place on our Discovery Studio Journey Map. We also discussed Revel's three guardrails (rules) and their importance. We focused on how to minimize distractions, keep our spaces safe and sacred, and what it means to be warm-hearted and tough-minded. On Wednesday afternoon, the Rebels watched the Pixar short movie Lou and started to develop their own ideas for our studio contracts. They suggested Rules of Engagement (ROEs), Studio Covenants, and promises they would like guides to make to them. Over the next few weeks, we will test and revise these until we have firm contracts that we believe will make our studio the best place to work and learn! On Thursday, the Rebels continued our conversation about trust and vulnerability, added some more ROEs and covenants to the test list, and started to design their Hero Boards.
Physical Development
The Discovery Rebels voted to play the Smaug's Jewels' cooperative game on Wednesday. Each took a turn playing the dragon, who had to protect a nest full of jewels from the other players. To approach and try to steal a gem, the player has to meet the criterion that the dragon called out. For example, "Approach if you are seven years old!"
Additional Highlights
On Friday afternoon, we played some team-building games with the whole school! It was lovely to see all of the Rebels getting to know one another regardless of age!
The returning Discovery Rebels have been excellently coaching our new studio mates on all Core Skills apps and routines. Our new Rebels have shown patience and grit as they learn the ropes. We are so proud of you, Discovery; it will be a fantastic year!
Exploration Studio
Our first week was all about welcoming our new members and coming together as a studio to create a culture of warm-hearted and tough-minded leaders. After imagining what we would all be up to in 2042, we introduced ourselves, reviewed the studio guardrails, and discussed the meaning and purpose behind our overarching question of the year.
Team Building
We must trust the people around us to take risks, be vulnerable, and share our most authentic selves. We, therefore, will spend significant time getting to know one another as individuals and as a community. This week we played several games such as; name games, Get on the Boat, Counting to 21, Record Ball, Crossing the Chocolate River, Empire, Rebel Bingo, Wax Museum, and more. Thursday, Rebels took part in the tallest tower challenge in the morning and then an engineering rotation where they had to build structures with Lego at one station, KEVA planks at another, and MagnaTiles at the third. The creativity and communication were on point! On Friday, we even got together as an entire school to get to know and play with learners in the Spark, Discovery, and Launchpad Studios.
Problem Solving
Our first module in our Computer Science course is all about problem-solving and the process we should go through when we are stumped or frustrated. We began with a boat challenge where each team had a 5 cm by 5 cm piece of aluminum foil to shape into a vessel that would hold the most nickels without sinking into a tub of water. After testing their initial designs, they were given another chance to improve their designs. Rebels were then asked to brainstorm potential problems that could crop up this year in our studio. Trash talking, high volume during work periods, and running through the school were a few of the challenges they brought up before discussing possible steps and solutions. Lastly, the Rebels were tasked with designing the studio! Where did they want their desks? Would spots rotate or would learners keep their areas for extended periods of time? Where should the TV and other furniture be placed? Once everyone had a plan, they worked together to move the tables and chairs accordingly, making the studio truly theirs.
Systems and Accountability
To ensure a safe and fun learning environment, we took time to discuss what we wanted our studio to look, feel, and sound like during different parts of the day. We reviewed the lunch and recess expectations and went on a hike to better understand our campus boundaries. Learners began writing their covenants, and we started discussing Rules of Engagement. We also learned about the Strike System and current Rebel Buck system, looking at last year's set of reasons to see if there were any we wanted to add or delete from the list.
Rebels received new notebooks with dividers for their work throughout the year to further develop our organization and executive function skills. To make the binders theirs, Rebels spent some time on the WordArt.com website designing their cover art which you will get to see at our first Exhibition in October.
New Rebels learned how to log onto a few of their core skills programs and became more familiar with Journey Tracker while returning Rebels began planning their session on their Google Goal sheet.
Community Service
One of our long-term goals this year is to create a culture of empathy and community service. Each Rebel will choose a cause or organization to support through volunteer hours, awareness campaigns, fundraising, etc. To get our learners brainstorming, we asked them what they were passionate about, nervous about, and would like to change about our world. Environmental causes, discrimination, violence, poverty, and mental and physical health were a few of the primary concerns expressed. We then discussed actions that we could do to help take control and help. Some Rebels have already committed to helping rid Carlington Hill of a pernicious invasive species while also planting native species in their place. Others are crafting a list of options they'd like to research further before diving into a project.
Literature and Communication
Learners reviewed Joseph Campbell's stages of the Hero's Journey and how we can see common themes and threads in many of our favourite stories and movies. While reading the last part of the epic of Gilgamesh, we identified the different steps before watching the Pixar short, Piper and repeating the process. By the end of the workshop, learners were armed with the knowledge that heroes are not all larger-than-life individuals born into greatness and that the important part of living a heroic life is taking on new challenges, accepting help from mentors or allies, and getting back up after failure.
After going over the definition and purpose of Deep Books at Revel, learners explored a collection of Hero's Journey stories and chose one as this year's first Deep Book. Once selected, those who were ready pitched their book to the studio for approval. We were blown away by the courage shown as most learners got right up to explain why their book fits the Deep Book criteria and answer questions from their peers.
Our first Book Club read-aloud of the year is Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin. The book is a Hero's Journey story featuring a young girl named Minli who searches for the Man of the Moon to bring fortune to her family. We read during our period right after recess and look forward to continuing our story next week!
Rebels were also introduced to the weekly communication handout that will help to review and teach communication concepts such as figurative language, Latin and Greek root words, grammar, and editing skills in easy-to-digest bite-sized chunks!
Friendships
In this session, we will explore authentic friendships, learn how to initiate conversations, and further develop our social skills. On Thursday, we participated in an activity where Rebels had to rank why friends are important to them. After selecting as many or as few as they wished, they had to rank them, placing the most important on top, followed by the next important, etc. Once the slips were in order, they had to allocate 100 points across the choices, giving the most points to the most critical reason and continuing until they were out of points. In their groups, they then had to defend their choices and point allocation with logic, evidence, stories, and emotion while listening to the others with an open mind.
Civilization
In this session, we will review history from the Big Bang to the emergence of human life. We, therefore, began this week with a lesson on claim testers (intuition, logic, evidence and authority) and how to critically analyze articles, infographics, data sets, and images. After watching a couple of introductory videos on the four claim testers, we discussed which we would use in various scenarios.
Physical Development
This week the full studio went on a walk to explore the area and our boundaries for learner-led hikes. We went through the park, up the Carlington hill, down a few trails, past Dulude, across to Morning Owl and back to the school. We stopped several times along the way to discuss staying on the trails, safety, and safe road crossings.
French workshop - Mural creation
This week we started to prepare our Exploration Studio mural! Using local Ottawa artist, Falldown as our inspiration, Rebels each chose a symbol or picture that represents them and we will be creating stencils to then make a collage of all our images. During our next workshop, we will choose the words we would also like to include in the mural.
Additional Highlights
We also completed planning for next week's overnight camp experience. We can't wait to head to Camp Bonnenfant on Monday!
In our first Town Hall of the year, we discussed that this is the time set aside each week to advocate for studio changes, discuss frustrations, and celebrate our successes. We ended our time with a remarkable series of Character Callouts! Wow, what an incredible group we have!
Launchpad
Welcome back, Launchpad! We began our week by getting settled, organizing the studio and our spaces, participating in problem-solving challenges, and catching up.
Mastery Transcript Consortium
The Launchpad Rebels spent time this week reviewing a draft of our Mastery Transcript Credit Areas, Foundational Credits, and Advanced Credits. They looked for redundancies, changed titles for clarity, and tried to identify if there were any areas they would like to see added to show a future employer or University admissions office who they are and what they bring to the table. Beginning next week, we will make the changes and start populating their online portfolio!
Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award
We are now an Open Award Centre for the International Duke of Edinburgh Award! After reviewing the program's history and award requirements, learners began to think about what they may want to use as their community service, skill, and physical recreation component. To broaden our social circle and have more fun during the Adventurous Journey, we have invited learners from other high schools to join us! We will schedule a meeting with all interested families shortly to discuss the details!
Community Service
Along with our Exploration Studio, one of our long-term goals this year is to create a culture of empathy and community service. Each Rebel will choose a cause or organization to support through volunteer hours, awareness campaigns, fundraising, etc. To get our learners brainstorming, we asked them what they were passionate about, nervous about, and would like to change about our world. Environmental causes, discrimination, violence, poverty, and mental and physical health were a few of the primary concerns expressed. We then discussed actions that we could do to help take control and help.
As this is also a component of the Duke of Edinburgh program, we will focus on choosing an activity that will take at least 13 weeks and create SMART goals for the Online Record book shortly.
Literature and Communication
We began our week discussing this year's expectations for the Literature and Communication badges and each learner's goals in these areas. One Rebel expressed interest in taking on the NaNoWriMo challenge once again, while the other's primary goal is to increase their writing efficiency. Both learners chose their first Deep book of the year and dove in immediately.
Second Language
One of our learners is working one-on-one with Mme. Marianne to further develop their French conversational and communication skills. After their coffee walk on Friday, they decided to do a Book Club and Current Events debate club where Marianne will send French articles to read and discuss.
Our other learner has chosen to take an online high school Spanish night course that will begin next week!
Civilization
Launchpad will also be joining Exploration for their twice-weekly Civilization courses. While most of the content will be the same, the expectations for debate research and written pieces will be elevated accordingly. In this session, we will review history from the Big Bang to the emergence of human life. We, therefore, began this week with a lesson on claim testers (intuition, logic, evidence and authority) and reviewed how to critically analyze articles, infographics, data sets, and images.
Additional Highlights
We can't wait to head to our overnight experience on Monday! Archery, ropes courses, and fire building? It's going to be a great three days!
Discussion Ideas or Questions to Ask Your Rebel:
Spark
How do we say "hi" in French? (Bonjour)
Can you tell me the continents?
What is something you learned about yourself this week?
French: Which games did you like playing the best this week?
Discovery:
Which mindful activity makes you feel most calm?
Which of the Core Skills apps do you like the most and why?
Which ROE or covenant do you think will be hardest to uphold from your current studio contracts? Why?
What photos and artifacts would you like to bring to school to add to your Hero Board?
French: what recipe do you want to do for your French workshop?
Exploration:
Imagine someone told you the universe started with a "big bang" billions of years ago. Which of the Big History' claims testers' would you use to decide whether or not to believe this story?
Intuition (your gut instinct). Does the claim feel right to you, or does it feel a bit off?
Logic (ability to reason). Does the claim make sense? Is there a good argument for it?
Authority (evaluate who is making a claim). Do you trust the source? Does the source have specific knowledge or expertise that gives you confidence?
Evidence (can be verified). If you or another person looked at the same evidence, would you arrive at the same findings?
Which teambuilding activity did you enjoy most? What do you think is key to working in a team?
What are you most looking forward to on the overnight trip? What are you worried about?
French: What did you draw for the mural? Who is your favourite artist?
Launchpad:
When looking over the Mastery Transcript draft, were there credits that you already knew the evidence you would choose to show mastery?
Do you have an Independent Project you’d like to complete this year?
French: What book would you like to read for your book club?
Dates of Interest in Session 1
Exploration and Launchpad Overnight Experience - Monday, September 12-14th
“Perfectionism: How to Stop Moving the Goalposts” - Online talk given by Dr. Matt Zakreski from 8-9pm on Tuesday, September 27th (Zoom link to be sent in advance)
Truth and Reconciliation Day and Orange Shirt Day - Friday, September 30th
Babysitting Course through Safety Tree - Sunday, October 2nd
Clean Up the Capital Campaign - Tuesday, October 4th
Session 1 Exhibitions
Discovery: Tuesday, October 4th at 4:15 pm
Spark: Wednesday, October 5th at 4:15 pm
Exploration: Thursday, October 6th at 4:15 pm
Sessional Break - October 11th - 14th