Revel Recap: March 6 - 10, 2023
Spark Studio
Mindfulness
On Monday, we started our day by reading My Magic Breath. This book talks about the power of using our breath when we feel sad, mad or nervous. We followed this story with two exercises from our Breathe Like a Bear book. First, we woke up our faces by opening our eyes wide, wiggling our eyebrows and nose and sticking out our tongues as far as they could go! Then we tried Bunny Breaths, where we took quick, little bunny breaths in through our nose, "sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff," and then let the air all the way out. On Tuesday, we revisited our 5-4-3-2-1 grounding mindfulness activity. We discussed how we could do this activity anywhere; inside, outside, at home, at school, or in the car. We started by breathing deeply in through our noses and out through our mouths. Counting down from five, we noticed five things we could see, four things we could feel, three things we could hear, two things we could smell and one emotion we felt. It's important to continue to practice these mindfulness activities often so that the Sparks can utilize these tools whenever they need them. Wednesday morning began with our uplifting and empowering affirmation song, followed by a fun minion-themed yoga. Thursday was the return of the Boomwhackers! The Sparks have set a goal to have a performance at our next Exhibition. We started with a warm-up and then decided to focus on learning the songs "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and "You Are My Sunshine." Friday morning, we started by reading the book Penguin Problems. From the moment Penguin wakes up, nothing is right. He is unhappy with everything, and the Sparks observed that he wasn't being very positive. A wise walrus comes along and tells him that things might be difficult and every day might not be the best but that you can still find good things in each day! The Sparks then set off to fill their gratitude jars with five things they are thankful for this week.
Quest
This week's Quest focus was all about card games! We began by carefully observing the deck and learned there are 52 playing cards and usually two jokers. We noted each suit, their names and the numbers. We then discussed some rules we needed to follow to make our card playing go smoothly. The Sparks listed ideas such as no cheating, no bending the cards, following the game rules, and having fun! On Monday, we played a two-player game with a playing mat and cards. Each learner started with seven cards face down and the remaining cards in a pile. The first player draws a card from the pile and then tries to play it if they have space on their mat. If they have an available spot, they flip the card over on the mat, and try to play that one too. If they cannot play the card, they discard it, and the next player goes. This was a great introductory card game, and the Sparks did a great job following the rules. Next, we played the card game Memory and ended our afternoon trying to make card towers. We watched an example video that made it look so easy. It was quite a difficult task, but the Sparks never gave up! On Tuesday, we learned how to play "Go Fish" and "Crazy Eights." Wednesday, we started with a directed drawing of a playing card and then discovered the rules of our next card game, "War." On Thursday and Friday, we learned how to play "Slapjack," "Old Maid," and "Snap." The learners all enjoyed these three games and were voted as the favourites from the week. All the Sparks were patient this week and did a great job learning and following the game rules. They were helping each other, taking turns, having fun, and everyone showed such great sportsmanship! Big shout out to one of our Spark Studio grown-ups for making us awesome cardholders. It was incredibly helpful this week!
French
We played a card game on Monday to learn about our fruits and vegetables in French. On Tuesday, we played in the gym a game of «Quelle heure est-il monsieur le loup ?» (What time is it, Mr. Wolf?) to continue practicing our numbers. The Rebels can almost all count to 24 in French now! Wednesday, we completed a colouring of Zaza the monster, where the Rebels had to design a healthy menu for Zaza. Lastly, we listened to a video about vegetables on Thursday and played a fruit and vegetable guessing game.
Art
We dedicated our art time this week to free exploration. Our artists explored their creativity and created their own projects using various materials. Paper bag puppets, scratch art, watercolour paintings and designing with clay were all chosen to make beautiful artwork!
Additional Highlights
During work periods this week, Sparks enjoyed two new centers. They practiced their tripod grips with the help of artistic rainbow scratch pads and built unique creations using plus-plus beads. The Sparks also learned about so many unique animals ahead of March Mammal Madness. We voted on each animal match-up, deciding who we thought would win the battle. We completed our bracket, and the Sparks chose the Wolverine as our ultimate champion! We look forward to seeing how the competition unfolds! On Wednesday, the Sparks had a wonderful conversation about International Women's Day and why we celebrate it. We also read the empowering book Girls Can Do Anything before we discussed and illustrated a picture of a woman in our life who inspires us. This week was the start of our guest read-alouds; thank you so much to our first two Mystery Readers! The Sparks loved hearing the clues and guessing who our guest was. Thank you for sharing your time and stories with us; it means so much to our Rebels!
We ended the week with a great storytelling workshop. The Sparks split into three groups and worked on creating a paper backdrop for the setting of their stories. We had dinosaur, ocean, and jungle scenes, and they did an excellent job illustrating these settings. We then went around and listened to each group's creative stories!
Discovery Studio
Mindfulness
For Mantra Monday, the Rebels explored the mantra, "I choose to let it go." They filled in some balloons with anything that bothered them or frustrated them from the previous week or weekend. If they were feeling only positively, they thought of things to add to their balloons that they would want to share with others. Then we did a visualization where they held their imaginary cluster of balloons tightly until it was time to let them go. For Talk it Out Tuesday, Rebels got cozy and participated in a 9-minute meditation from Headspace. After we finished, Rebels shared how their thoughts would sometimes wander to Core Skills, Fun Friday, or other ideas would interrupt - and strategies they used to bring their minds back to guided meditation. On Wonder Wednesday, the Rebels listened to music in the Greek style and worked on paper crafts related to leaders from the Byzantine Empire and Viking longships. For Thankful Thursday, the Rebels continued their gratitude practice in their journals. Feel-Good Friday, we played some new jams together using our Boomwhackers!
Launches
Monday's Launch, had our Rebels thinking about their first-round picks for March Mammal Madness brackets to prepare for next week's tournament. We had a Rebel-Led Launch to connect by playing a movie-guessing game on Tuesday! Rebels enjoyed trying to decode the emojis to uncover some of their favourite films. Wednesday, we celebrated International Women's Day with a video and discussion on why we celebrate the changes women have made around the world. Thursday's equip and inspire Launch had the Rebels thinking about the upcoming Rebel/Grown-Up/Guide meetings. They worked through a list of questions that family members may ask and started to reflect on their progress and long-term plans. Friday's Current Events report featured Daylight Savings Time origins, a Rebel-Led update about F1 Racing and Canadian racer Lance Stroll, and a fun behind-the-scenes clip of makeup and costume design called "Becoming The Trunchbull" from Matilda the Musical!
Math Lab
This week the Rebels continued to work with and refine their use of number lines and open number lines to model and solve elapsed time problems. They rotated again between independent practice telling analog time (this week included telling time to the nearest second), team time to ask each other questions, share ideas and confirm solutions, and a guided station to target any misconceptions that emerged. Rebels worked incredibly well with each other to discuss their number lines and determine their accuracy. They used many strategies to break down complex problems, like circling key context clues or significant numbers and highlighting question words. Well done, Rebels!
Reader/Writer
This week in Reader/Writer, Rebels focused on Word Clines and Descriptive Writing for a setting. Rebels categorized vocabulary words for a spooky scene, temperature, character moods, speed, and size. Once we finished our first set of Word Clines for our descriptive writing wall, Rebels watched a short clip from Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone and wrote a description for the setting and characters accompanying it for the movie's screenplay. Rebels were so excited to share their scene descriptions with the team. As Rebels shared their work, we tracked the variety of descriptive vocabulary used and will create a Word Cline for it next week.
Civilizations
This week's story of the ancient world took the Rebels back to the Frankish Empire, known today as France. Rebels learned how various warring tribes near Gaul united to defeat the invading Huns. After this, Clovis, an ex-barbarian, established a capital city that would become today's city of Paris to keep the unity between the original tribes. He also established several laws called the Salic Laws. This part of the story inspired the Rebels to debate fairness and logic. For example, a Frank who stole from a Roman would only be fined 1400 denars, but a Roman who stole from a Frank would be fined 2500 denars!
Quest
This week in Quest, Rebels completed their presentations for Musical Theatre History - Through the Eras! Rebels presented the most interesting parts of their research to the team and their three biggest takeaways from that period. Our focus for the rest of the week was on our Mentor Musical: Roald Dahl's Matilda! On Tuesday, Rebels began Part 1 of the Musical as we turned our library into a screening room for the afternoon! After Part 1, Rebels discussed elements of the production, character analyses, similarities and differences between the movie and book, and their favourite parts so far. Wednesday, we wrapped up the screening of Matilda, and Rebels broke off into small teams to complete a review of the musical and select an activity to complete together. Some opted to build model sets from the show, design new costumes for the main characters, and create new choreography for one of the songs, while others opted to do table readings and rewrite an ending using the screenplay.
French
We practiced our days of the week and months in French this week. We completed a word search and a matching game before learning the song « Le roi, la reine et le petit prince » to help us remember the days of the week.
For our workshop this session, we are creating a restaurant! We began by reviewing the food vocabulary we learned during our cooking workshop. We played a classification game where the Rebels had to sort food by category (appetizers, main courses, sides or desserts).
Physical Development
On Monday, we explored all the actions/sports we can do with a cone (use it as a container or pin to mark a course or an obstacle course, etc.) Then the Rebels were invited to make a course or an obstacle course as a team which was then tested by the other Rebels. On Wednesday, the Rebels gathered in the gym to play Sabakiball and then took 15 minutes at the end of the period to check in with their teams and research their chosen body part or system for the upcoming Healthapalooza. Rebels were encouraged to find one fact from a provided video series, one from a book, and one "just know" fact from their lives to help them design a PE activity to target their body part!
Additional Highlights
Over the past few weeks, our studio has grown by three new learners, and we are so happy to see the community shift and evolve. The Rebels have been working so well together to help everyone settle in. Thank you, Rebels, for being the best examples of warm-hearted heroes imaginable!
Exploration Studio
Mindfulness
On Monday morning, Exploration Rebels began with watercolour painting, cursive writing, and colouring while peaceful music played in the background. Tuesday and Thursday's yoga focused on the side body, stretching our legs and some gentle spinal twists, and incorporating balancing poses such as Eagle and Warrior 3. Rebels created jellyfish paintings using glue and watercolours to accompany our marine life study this week and seeing so many learners experiment with new techniques each session has been great. On Friday, we took time to work on puzzles, paint, work on cursive, and build Lego for the first fifteen minutes of our day, helping us all return to a baseline before Launch.
Launches
"You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems" - James Clear. We began our week learning about Atomic Habits, which are practical strategies James Clear feels can help us improve daily by forming good habits, breaking bad ones, and mastering tiny behaviours that lead to significant changes. On Tuesday, we imagined that a country wants to improve its people's lives. It intends to concentrate lots of money on a few goals to make progress more quickly. So where should most of the money be spent; exploration, education, environment, connections, or innovation? While the Rebels were split among all five categories, the majority initially voted for education and environment; however, by the end of the debate, favour had shifted based on hearing one another's arguments. On Wednesday, we continued to learn about Atomic Habits as the Rebels worked on their jellyfish watercolour art. In preparation for March Mammal Madness, Rebels chose one of the contenders and created an art cube where they drew the animal and its habitat and coloured the top with the competition division. On Friday, our Current Events team taught us about the Zebra Turkeyfish, Daylight Savings, the World Baseball Classic, and ended with some hilarious "Live From Snacktime" quotes.
Math Lab - Three Act Tasks
Our second Three Act Task of the session took us back to the driveway problem, but we were shovelling snow this time, not laying salt! Rebels engaged in this story arc, starting with a short clip of a man shovelling a portion of his driveway. After last week's task, many Rebels' mathematical minds were ready to notice and wonder using fractional language with statements like, "I think one-eighth of the driveway was shovelled." In the next act, another family member shovelled more of the driveway. Eventually, we used area models to consider how much of the total driveway had been shovelled after two passes. Using the area model in the sense-making stage forced Rebels to slow down and make conceptual connections between the visual representations of fractions and more symbolic or abstract representations. Mid-lab, they met with their teams to share thinking, area models, and solutions for what fraction of the entire driveway was cleared during the second pass and what fraction of the total drive was left with snow. They tried to convince each other of their models and solutions and made revisions based on peer feedback. We met as a whole group for the third act to reveal the answer and consolidate understanding about how to use multiplication to determine fractions of fractions more efficiently!
Reader/Writer - Lab Reports
Exploration Rebels took a deep dive through the ocean zones this week and created lab reports for an experiment focusing on pollution and marine life in the Abyssopelagic Zone. Rebels spent Monday's Lab researching, listening, and reading information that would help them learn more about the ocean zones and the species who live there. They began building Ocean Zone Goggles as part of their lab procedures, tracking material lists, and establishing their hypothesis for this experiment. On Friday, Rebels put their ocean goggles to the test to uncover how pollution in different ocean zones can affect marine life who live there. Adding 8-10 layers of blue cellophane to their Ocean Zone Goggles to recreate what it might be like visually trying to collect food in the deepest ocean zone, Rebels attempted to gather food while trying to avoid pieces of plastic. Rebels finished their Lab Reports and discussed what steps have already been taken or need to be considered to help the pollution problems in ocean zones.
Civilizations - Canadian Government
In preparation for next week's field trip to the House of Commons and the Senate, we completed games, activities and research to understand how our Constitutional Monarchy and Parliamentary Democracy system works! We learned about the branches and levels of government, parliament and elections, the purpose of the House of Commons and the Senate, Canadian symbols, and how Canada came together as a country.
Quest - Complexity of Water
Last week we learned the properties of water, so this Monday, we turned our focus to the properties of seawater. Rebels were once again tasked with taking guided notes, a practice that will help them as they move into high school and beyond. We learned why the ocean appears blue, how pressure changes with depth, sound propagation, how the temperature fluctuates in marine environments, the composition of seawater, the rule of constant proportions, how rising carbon dioxide affects ocean chemistry, and how rising ocean acidity affects organisms! Whew! We then watched a video about thermohaline circulation and how the constant motion of our oceans represents a vast and complicated system involving many different drivers, such as the concentration gradient. On Tuesday, we turned our attention to plate tectonics and how we currently believe that Earth's broken outer shell rises from the mantle and folds back in, giving us our continents and oceans, mountains and valleys, volcanoes, and earthquakes. After reviewing the layers of the Earth and the differences between oceanic and continental crust, we experimented with convergent, divergent and transformation boundaries using frosting, fruit rollups, and graham crackers! It was a delicious experiment that helped us to see how these forces come into play. Since our learners all wanted to learn more about marine life, we tackled marine ecology and energy transfer on Wednesday before learning about the challenges of living in the ocean. We learned about diffusion, osmosis, and how different animals adapt to the ocean's temperature, pressure, viscosity, and transparency. On Thursday, Rebels signed up for a group of animals to complete a one-day deep dive. Choosing from Porifera, Cnidaria and Ctenophora, Mollusca, Echinoderms, Crustaceans, Cartilaginous and Bony fish, Marine Reptiles, Seabirds, and Mammals, Rebels read a PowerPoint before completing virtual dissections, task cards, or art projects.
French
On Monday, we made a list of all the French-speaking countries and then worked on an activity to learn how to name the people living in these French countries. Then on Wednesday, for International Women's Day, we practiced the feminine words in French with multiple games.
For our workshop, we played a game similar to "Guess Who?" but with restaurants. The Rebels had to guess which restaurant the other Rebels owned, allowing us to practice our questions, such as "Do you serve soup?" and "Are you a vegetarian restaurant?"
Additional Highlights
Many of the Exploration Rebels spent significant time in the park this week making incredible snow dome homes! The Discovery Rebels were profoundly impressed and so excited when they, too, got to explore their buildings!
Launchpad
Canadian Government
In preparation for next week's field trip to the House of Commons and the Senate, we completed games, activities and research to understand how our Constitutional Monarchy and Parliamentary Democracy system works! We learned about the branches and levels of government, parliament and elections, the purpose of the House of Commons and the Senate, Canadian symbols, and how Canada came together as a country.
Complexity of Water
Last week we learned the properties of water, so this Monday, we turned our focus to the properties of seawater. We learned why the ocean appears blue, how pressure changes with depth, sound propagation, how the temperature fluctuates in marine environments, the composition of seawater, the rule of constant proportions, how rising carbon dioxide affects ocean chemistry, and how rising ocean acidity affects organisms! Whew! We then watched a video about thermohaline circulation and how the constant motion of our oceans represents a vast and complicated system involving many different drivers, such as the concentration gradient.
On Tuesday, we turned our attention to plate tectonics and how we currently believe that Earth's broken outer shell rises from the mantle and folds back in, giving us our continents and oceans, mountains and valleys, volcanoes, and earthquakes. After reviewing the layers of the Earth and the differences between oceanic and continental crust, we experimented with convergent, divergent and transformation boundaries using frosting, fruit rollups, and graham crackers! It was a delicious experiment that helped us to see how these forces come into play. Since our learners all wanted to learn more about marine life, we tackled marine ecology and energy transfer on Wednesday before learning about the challenges of living in the ocean. We learned about diffusion, osmosis, and how different animals adapt to the ocean's temperature, pressure, viscosity, and transparency. On Thursday, Rebels signed up for a group of animals to complete a one-day deep dive. Choosing from Porifera, Cnidaria and Ctenophora, Mollusca, Echinoderms, Crustaceans, Cartilaginous and Bony fish, Marine Reptiles, Seabirds, and Mammals, Rebels read a PowerPoint before completing virtual dissections, task cards, or art projects.
Tale of Two Cities
This week, learners read and discussed Book 2, Chapters 1 - 9 of their novel Tale of Two Cities. They were struck again by the caricature Dickens made of the aristocrats, especially the Marquis. Learners also completed a thesaurus activity before adding evidence from the book to their character analysis page.
French and Spanish
This week we chose the news articles we will read together in this session and completed diction exercises (tongue twisters). To celebrate International Women's Day, we worked on the feminine form of words and learned about words that have different meanings depending on whether they are feminine or masculine.
In Spanish this week, we mainly worked on weather and season vocabulary and sentences. Our grammar lesson focused on the present progressive with a review of estar, and the cultural component of our classes focused on Ecuador this week.
Independent Passion Projects
As we are only a month and a half away from the Ottawa Children's Business Fair, our Launchpad has been working hard to secure our sponsors and mentors and give one last push for registrants! This next week they will begin going through each application to choose the fifty businesses for this year's event!
Launchpad Rebels also continued working on their chosen electives this week with more carving, drawing, painting, and writing their epitaph and eulogy.
Potential Discussion Ideas or Questions to Ask your Rebel:
Spark
Can you show us how to do bunny breaths?
What was your favourite card game you played this week? Can you show us how to play it?
Which animal did the Spark studio choose for the winner of March Mammal Madness?
French: How do you say pineapple in French? (Ananas)
Discovery
How did you describe the scene from "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" in Reader/Writer this week?
In Quest, which role from Matilda: The Musical interests you most? Did you prefer the book, the movie or the musical performance? Which Matilda activity did you choose to do after you watched the performance?
French: Can you tell me the days of the week in French?
Exploration
Was it difficult to see the felt "food" when wearing the eight cellophane layers on your Ocean Zone Goggles? What did you learn from doing that Lab?
Which animal group did you choose to research in Quest? Any fun facts you would like to share?
Who have you chosen as your March Mammal Madness champion?
French: How many French-speaking countries are there in the world? (29)
Launchpad
Who is your favourite character in Tale of Two Cities? Are they a likeable character?
Given the opportunity, what outings should we go on to further your pursuit of a volunteer position, potential career, or educational enjoyment?
French: Can you tell me some words that change their meaning, whether feminine or masculine, in French?
Dates of Interest
Monday, March 13th - March Mammal Madness brackets are due before 9:00 am to play
Tuesday, March 14th - Pi Day!
Thursday, March 16th - Exploration and Launchpad Field Trip to Senate and the House of Commons
Friday, March 17th - Leprechaun Traps
Monday, March 20th - Reefs Alive workshop with the Smithsonian for Exploration and Launchpad
Friday, March 24th - Exploration and Launchpad Field Trip to the Canadian Museum of Nature
Thursday, March 30th: Proulx Farm MapleFest Field Trip for Spark & Discovery Studios