Revel Recap: April 24 - 28, 2023
Spark Studio
Mindfulness
With the gloomy weather on Monday morning, the Sparks listened to a podcast called "The Little Hedgehog and the Treehouse." The hedgehog was putting their architecture skills to the test to build a helipad, but was it in the budget to do so? On Tuesday, we started on a mural with the Sparks, each adding trees and bugs to the paper. Wednesday, the learners followed a directed drawing of a butterfly and a palm tree. Each picture was unique in its own way! Mme Marianne led a yoga morning with the Sparks the following day that incorporated individual and partner poses. In the studio, we are working on the importance of patience. "Patience is my power" was this week's affirmation. As a studio, we repeated, "I am patient, I am calm, I am forgiving, I take deep a breath and trust that everything will always work out, I am patient." We chose this affirmation as we patiently waited for the flowers to bloom, the snow to melt, and the sun to shine. To end the week, the Sparks used tape and paint to create a picture on a very long piece of paper. The guides removed the tape when the paint dried, and the Sparks were so excited to see their masterpieces!
Quest
Trees and other plants are blooming, with the spring showers happening this week. The Sparks embraced their dance moves by learning a song which reflects on the part of a tree using the music from "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes." After the Sparks completed a tree puzzle, they worked together as a group to name each part of the tree. Each part of the tree puzzle was passed around the circle, and the learners traced the puzzle piece with their index fingers and said the part. On Tuesday, we learned about the importance of trees and what they give us. The Sparks came up with a long list of what trees provide for us and what we use them for if we cut them down. The three most essential things trees provide are oxygen, shelter and food. Sparks learned that if we continue to cut down the number of trees we cut down each year to provide more building structures, in 200 years, trees could become extinct. We spent Quest in nature on Wednesday using the field across from Revel. The learners searched for objects from a scavenger hunt list in small groups. Many Sparks were curious about the stumps above the ground and had many questions about the rings on the tree stump. They learned that trees are sensitive to climate conditions like temperature, moisture, and sunlight, and their growth reacts to these factors. Wider tree rings may indicate a warm, wet year, whereas fine tree rings can indicate a cold and dry season. Additionally, finer tree rings may indicate distress from fire, fungus, and diseases. On Thursday, we continued to work on our 3D tree. We read the story, The Tree, by Dana Lyons, which told us what trees offer us. For Friday, we practiced our roots, trunk, branches and leaves song and read the story Be a Tree by Maria Gianferrari. The book describes how our bodies can be like trees; the trunk is our spine, the nutrients fill our blood, our leaves are our crown, and a forest of trees is like a community of people that work together to stay healthy. Next week we will be focusing on flowers!
French
On Monday, in French, we read Le livre des contraires to learn opposing vocabulary such as up, down, in front, behind, open, closed, and more! We played in the gym on Tuesday to review with the help of «Jean dit» (Simon says) and our classic Quelle heure est-il Monsieur Leloup to practice our numbers. Wednesday, we read POP, a «search and find» book, to learn the words où (where) and ici (here). Lastly, we made an unfolding flower craft on Thursday to learn the words small and big.
Math
Tick tock, tick-tock, "What time is it, Guides?" The Sparks are very curious about time, so we began working on telling time using an analogue clock. We listened to a song to get used to the hour and minute hands and to better grasp the visual appearance; the Sparks made their own clock. On Tuesday, we brought out the analogue clock again, but we added the minutes this time. The learners had so many questions about what the numbers meant when the big hand landed on it. The Sparks even designed a flower clock where the petals represented the minutes. Everyone is doing an excellent job of checking the clock in the studio to figure out what time of day it is and will help the guides by telling them the time when asked.
Storytelling Workshop
The Sparks were given the title "The Magical Tree Adventure" to begin our story. We started our workshop by making a circle around our money tree. We each said a sentence to create our tale as a group. The story was about how the tree provides so much for us, but it can also have cats climb to the top and needs a dog's support to bring it down to its owners. At the end of our story, the animals were all back happily with their owners! The Spark' then worked in small groups using loose materials to make their own story, with the words, "Once upon a time there was a magical tree..." The learners demonstrated that each has an extraordinary imagination that can engage everyone's attention. It's always a blast listening to the stories they design and create.
Additional Highlights
To help connect our weeks, we brought out Bug Bingo and discussed how many bugs live in trees. So not only did we get to talk about the trees we are studying this week, but we also learned about new insects! We played a few more games this week, such as Memory, Hot Potato and Freeze Dance. Not only did we enjoy the indoors, but we also had extra time outside this week. This Friday, we enjoyed three more rhyming Show and Tell objects. The Sparks are doing so well finding two things from home that rhyme. Keep it up, Sparks!
Lastly, we would like to thank Christie and the Spark families for making our consent and boundaries workshop successful. We learned a song about the importance of boundaries that all bodies are cool, and what I say goes. Remember that learning is never-ending, and we can learn new things together as a community.
Discovery Studio
Mindfulness
This Monday's mantra was, "I care greatly about Earth and all living things." Rebels listened to music and coloured beautiful natural flowers, mushrooms and cacti designs. Tuesday's Mindful Zen Doodles featured Earth Day designs from Monday, and Rebels selected an acoustic Disney cover song playlist for their mindful soundtrack. For Wonder Wednesday, the Rebels tried a mindful puzzle challenge! We split into some small teams and worked together to focus our minds and try to complete a 100-piece floor puzzle before Launch. The Rebels worked so well together! Thursday morning, the Rebels wrote in their gratitude journals and on Feel-Good Friday, we played the Imperial March on the Boomwhackers!
Launches
Monday's Launch focused on Earth Day, as we couldn't celebrate this year in person. We asked the Rebels, "What is your favourite thing about Earth?" and discussed how the people living on it with us, the places Earth gives us to explore, and the animals that roam around it were the Rebels' most popular responses. We turned our attention to an Earth Day favourite, "Be Thankful for Trees," and listened to a story while we thought about the question: What are all the things in the world that are possible because of trees? Tuesday's Rebel-led launch featured a Kahoot! All about Irish dancing - thank you for a fun way to connect! Wednesday morning, our Squad Leaders ran the launch as a mid-week check-in with their Squads to see how their goals were shaping up for this week. During Thursday's Launch, we celebrated the official cast and crew for our studio's production of Matilda! Friday's Current Events report featured some awesome Good News: a skiing squirrel, a photographer who turns his children's animal art into photo-shopped images, and some possible TIME for Kids magazine covers for the year 2123!
Reader/Writer
This week in Reader Writer, Rebels read and edited an excerpt about Jane Goodall and the impact her research on chimpanzees had on the world. From correcting plural nouns to proper comma placement in sentences, Rebels searched for various errors within the paragraph and worked in teams to edit the excerpt to a higher level of "excellence." Rebels chose between two creative prompts for their writing challenge this week: Invent an Underwater School and Tell a Story about a Mystery Train that Travels Through Time.
French
This week we learned how to say who by playing Guess Who? in French and took pictures to make our personalized Guess Who game! We also played with question dice, and each Rebel had to roll the dice and answer questions in French. We then started to learn how to make negative sentences (like je n'aime pas, je ne veux pas,..).
We listened to a video for the French workshop to learn how to plant and prepare seedlings. Afterward, we did a craft to review our gardening vocabulary in French.
Math Lab
This week the Rebels made a game plan with their fellow business owners to determine how many tasks they would need to complete each week to earn their badge by the end of the session. For the rest of their time, they met in their BIAs and worked together to share strategies and conduct error analysis when they reached different solutions. The Animal Care Club was busy creating invoices for their clients and stocking up on supplies based on a budget of $275. The Babysitters Club used a limited budget of $20.00 to buy craft supplies for their gigs. Meanwhile, the entrepreneurs at Lawnmowers Inc. debated the pros and cons of using a push mower vs. a power mower regarding fuel expenses and time spent at each client's house. It is awesome to sit in on the team meetings and listen to strategies for addition and subtraction with whole numbers up to 1000, what to do with decimals, and how to balance revenue and expenses best.
Civilizations
Rebels used their CIV time this week to explore the major players and events of the Middle Ages, narrowing down their project scope to one significant group or event. For example, one team will research the life of Joan of Arc while another will tackle the Bubonic Plague! Next week Rebels will help to co-create a research template emphasizing how to keep track of and later cite their sources.
Physical Development
On Monday, we played Hen-Snake-Fox, a 3-way tag game. Wednesday, we hosted our Healthapalooza! The Rebels ran an extremely creative circuit of activities which targeted our hearts, lungs, arm and leg muscles, and even our brains! We went bowling with weights (carefully!), had a snowball fight, and played a musical version of hula-hoop hopscotch! Most teams also ensured to run a warm-up and cool-down before and after their activity - well done, Rebel fitness coaches!
Quest
With our Hero's Journey screenplay shell developed last week, the Rebels were ready for their first team table read on Monday. They began to break down each of their seven scenes line by line, making conscious choices about language for clarity and appropriateness and merging characters to form a chorus before staging and blocking. Tuesday, the Rebels continued to read through their screenplay and finalize casting calls, and we had our first musical rehearsal! The Rebels will feature three musical numbers, and we are working on committing the rhythm and pacing of the lyrics to memory before we add choreography. Wednesday, we held auditions for some key roles and practiced singing the musical numbers in the gym using the dimensions of our performance stage. Thursday, we had our first Production Meeting, and the Rebels calculated ticket costs based on the rental fees and licensing needed to perform off-site at UOttawa's Leonard Beaulne Studio!
Additional Highlights
The new flow of Fun Friday rewards for this session has been established: Two Fun Fridays in a row will earn the Rebels a tropical drinks celebration, four in a row will earn them the first tier plus a screen Fun Friday, and, if the Rebels complete their Core Skills goals all five weeks this session, they will get the first two rewards and five Rebel Bucks!
Exploration Studio
Mindfulness, Launches, and Closings
Monday morning, the Exploration Rebels threw on their raincoats and went for a 30-minute walk around the neighbourhood. We took in the sights and sounds as we wrote down the names of the businesses we could research for potential apprenticeships. Our walk was a great way to start the week, and we played an entertaining and critical-thinking board game called Concept to finish our Monday.
Tuesday morning's yoga detox flow featured stretches and poses to relax the spine, with a few fun moves to light up the core at the end! We then learned the importance of networking. We agreed that making the rounds and conversing with strangers can be uncomfortable, but networking can pay huge dividends with the right approach and practice.
Wednesday, we took some to reflect on what our "Dream Job" vs "Nightmare Job" would be. It was interesting to hear that some learners' absolutely perfect career was other Rebels' worst position. We played "Cheat" to end the day with high energy and laughter.
On Thursday, we had a great yoga session where we did our best to stay completely still for five minutes before stretching. We then discussed our social media presence and how social networks have empowered employers and mentors to evaluate prospective hires and apprentices and judge accordingly. The Rebels listed why they may not hire someone after viewing an online profile and reflected on their use as potential employees. A game of Snake Oil ended our day with hilarity as the groups tried to sell tools to a ninja.
Free Choice Friday found Rebels working on a Lego bouquet of flowers, building KEVA plank structures, playing chess, and working on a puzzle before our Rebel-led Current Events presentation. Our Town Hall closed our week by discussing how many Journey Tracker points Duolingo XP should earn.
Math Lab
This week the Rebels tried the No Bikes Allowed challenge! Act I: we watched a short clip of someone riding a rented scooter in San Diego. The Rebels could see only information roughly halfway through the route, including how much the trip cost and how long the rider had been riding. They noticed and wondered many things, such as how the price changed as time did and which units these variables were measured in. Using their little information, the Rebel teams estimated anywhere from $3-10 for the trip. Act II: they wanted to know more to solve the total cost of the trip: what was the distance of the entire trip? Is the rate based on time or distance? What is the rate? How do we find a rate? Do units matter? The Rebels then got two new pieces of information; the timestamp and cost later in the route and the total distance. From there, some incredible conversations happened, reasoning using the visual route information and realizing there was an initial flat fee because scaling the two variables in tandem didn't work. Before Act III's big reveal, the Rebel teams revised their estimates and narrowed the range to $3.27-6.97. Well done, Rebels! At the end of the task, we reviewed some key strategies that help visualize linear relations: double number lines, tables of values, graphs and equations.
Reader/Writer
This week for our Artificial Intelligence VS Education Writer's Workshop, Rebels questioned and discussed the definitions of "art" and "artist" before reading and listening to articles and videos about the artistic applications, Lensa and Dall-E. Rebels wrote a series of responses to questions about the future of visual arts and how it might be impacted by machine learning. Rebels used their written responses to participate in Friday's debate, with most feeling that the value of work created by human artists will always be higher than those produced by AI apps. Rebels debated the meaning of "original" and "unique" works and whether or not that language could ever be used when referencing AI-generated artwork.
Quest
What does the yellow blinking light mean? Where are the sensors? Why do we have four cool landing pads? Now that we've had some fun learning how to use and begin to code the drones, we took some time to better understand our equipment before writing algorithms for a series of challenges. Rebels completed a set of lessons in the TelloEdu App on Monday and Tuesday, exploring iteration (repeat and forever loops) to control their drone. Using as few blocks as possible, teams had to code three levels of challenges successfully. On Thursday, learners created obstacle courses and then coded their solutions. While we didn't have the chance to complete other groups' missions, the learners worked well together while battling frustration from connection issues and drone inaccuracies. Next week we'll begin choreographing our Drone Dance for Exhibition!
Rules without Rulers
This week, we turned to Start-Up Nations and learned about a Zone for Employment and Economic Development (ZEDE). We focused on an administrative division in Honduras that allows its residents a high level of autonomy with its own economic, judicial, and political system with some ties still to the Honduran government. Inspired by other free trade zones such as Hong Kong, Songdo, and Singapore, these cities were planned to bring in investments and create employment opportunities. Rebels debated the system's pros and cons, whether or not they thought the Honduran experiment would work, and how long they would allow the ZEDE to continue. While many felt it was a great idea to give it a shot, many were concerned about who was in control of the ZEDE.
French
This week we continued to debate! On Monday, we discussed: Is Roblox or Minecraft better? What about baseball vs. basketball? Thursday, we listened to a video on bilingualism in Canada and debated: Should all government officials in positions of authority be bilingual?
We listened to a safety video for our French Woodworking Workshop and took a quiz to see if we understood the safety rules with tools.
Additional Highlights
On Wednesday, we met Sharon Boddy in Carlington Park to remove an invasive species called knotweed. While a group helped her with the removal, the rest of us picked up garbage near the Carlington stairwell and surrounding areas, gathering at least four full bags of litter! (We even got a shoutout from Riley Brockington, the City Councillor for River Ward!) As it was a lovely afternoon, some continued walking with Sharon as she pointed out various species of plants and fungi.
Launchpad
Civilization
This week we began our exciting dive into different forms of modern-day governments. Launchpad learners were asked to present a challenge that a modern form of government of a country (or coalition/tribe of people) has faced. They needed to share information about the country and its form of government while presenting the dilemma so that the other learners have enough information to decide: what works well about this form of government in the present day, what doesn't work well, and is it well prepared to take on the challenges of the future.
We then turned to Start-Up Nations and learned about a Zone for Employment and Economic Development (ZEDE). We focused on this administrative division in Honduras that allows its residents a high-level autonomy with its own economic, judicial, and political system with some ties still to the Honduran government. Inspired by other free trade zones such as Hong Kong, Songdo, and Singapore, these cities were planned to bring in investments and create employment opportunities. Rebels debated the system's pros and cons, whether or not they thought the Honduran experiment would work, and how long they would allow the ZEDE to continue. While many felt it was a great idea to give it a shot, many were concerned about who was in control of the ZEDE.
Genetics
Launchpad had a very full week of genetics assignments! They completed an activity to help cement their understanding of Mendel's experiments before completing a monohybrid-cross simulation. After reviewing their Punnett Square problems set, the Rebels took their first genetics quiz to check for understanding. They then completed a lab where they explored human traits with the help of the learners from the Exploration Studio. They surveyed freckles, dimples, ear lobes, tongue rolling and PTC taste-testing to identify if our population matched their predictions. We learned more about the Human Genome Project on Wednesday before diving into Dihybrid Crosses and an associated lab. Launchpad learned about complex patterns of inheritance on Thursday before completing an activity focussing on multiple alleles and incomplete and codominance. Lastly, we completed a series of X-linked genetics practice problems. Wow, great job!
Programming and Drones
What does the yellow blinking light mean? Where are the sensors? Why do we have four cool landing pads? Now that we've had some fun learning how to use and begin to code the drones, we took some time to understand our equipment better before writing algorithms for a series of challenges. Rebels completed a set of lessons in the TelloEdu App on Monday and, on Tuesday, explored iteration (repeat and forever loops) to control their drone. Using as few blocks as possible, teams had to code three levels of challenges successfully. Using procedures (functions), Launchpad then attempted to teach their drone to waltz on Thursday!
Artificial Intelligence
This week for our Artificial Intelligence VS Education, learners read articles and watched a few videos about the artistic applications, Lensa and Dall-E. There was passionate discussion immediately as our Launchpad has powerful feelings about these apps and was, therefore, ready to write their responses to questions surrounding the future of visual arts and how it can/will be impacted by machine learning. Our Launchpad learners then led the debate on Friday with the Exploration Rebels.
Independent Projects
The Ottawa Children's Business Fair is on Sunday, so our learner coordinating the event worked hard to answer last-minute emails, remind the mentors of their responsibilities, and interview with the Ottawa Business Journal and CBC Radio! We are so proud of their time and effort to put on this awesome event!
Additional Highlights
Friday morning, the Launchpad Rebels made a huge batch of chocolate chip cookies to take to their friends at Highjinx! It has been so wonderful to see how committed they are and the development of their relationships with this incredible group of people.
Potential Discussion Ideas or Questions to Ask Your Rebel:
Spark
How do trees support humans and animals on planet Earth?
French: How do you say rainbow in French? (arc-en-ciel)
Discovery
In Reader/Writer this week, did you opt to write a story about the Mystery Train or the Underwater School?
How did you make your game plan for your Math Lab business tasks? What tasks did you complete this week, and how many are left before the end of the session?
For Quest, what role did you get for the upcoming musical production? How are you feeling about it so far?
French: What did you choose to grow in your little greenhouse?
Exploration
Do you think pursuing a career as a Digital Artist is still worthwhile, even with the growing popularity of Artificial Intelligence apps like Lensa and Dall-E?
How can you tell if a linear relation, like the rental cost of a scooter, has an initial flat fee or not?
French: What subject would you like to debate?
What characteristics of a job are important to you and present in your dream job:
Ability to excel and aligns with your skills;
Autonomy and ability to self-manage;
Challenging tasks and problems to solve;
Enjoyable and aligns with personal interests;
Working on something meaningful in society;
Work with highly skilled or interesting people;
High compensation and pay for work; or
Something else?
Launchpad
What has your favourite or most exciting assignment in Genetics been so far?
Which modern-day government did you choose to research in Civ?
With 10 weeks left in the school year, what are your Big Rock goals?
Dates of Interest
Session 6 Exhibitions
Exploration: Tuesday, May 16th at 4:15 pm
Discovery: Wednesday, May 17th *OFF-SITE* at UOttawa's Leonard Beaulne Studio - see BAND for details.
Spark: Thursday, May 18th at 4:15 pm