Revel Recap: May 1 - 5, 2023
Spark Studio
Mindfulness
We started our Monday morning listening to a garden relaxation meditation story. It encouraged us to picture the beauty of various flowers and helped us practice our breath work, imagining we were smelling these beautiful flowers. Afterwards, we used loose parts to create our own unique flowers. The Sparks love colouring, and we try to incorporate mindful colouring into their mornings each week. So on Tuesday, the learners coloured in lovely images of flowers and added them to our collaborative art piece while listening to relaxing music. On Wednesday, we read the book I Am Yoga. We followed along with the poses in the book and then completed a yoga sequence using our Pretzel cards as a guide. Puzzles and calming music were the focus on Thursday. Ending our week by reflecting and sharing what we are grateful for is always a nice way to start our Friday mornings.
Quest
The Sparks were curious about the beautiful bouquet that arrived in the studio on Monday until they discovered that flowers were our theme this week! First up, we explored the parts of a flower. Using real flowers, we noticed that the roots were missing. We then observed the stem, leaves, petals and stamen. We looked at the wide variety of flowers, even finding a few stems with buds! We talked about the definitions of their parts and functions for each before we worked on drawing our flowers and labelling the parts. Next, we chose three white flowers for an experiment. We filled three jars with water and added red, blue and green food colouring to each one. Then we cut off the bottom part of the stem and placed it in the water. What do you predict will happen? Many of the Sparks hypothesized that the flowers would change colours. We then discussed why and how long they thought this process would take. A learner then came up with their own question and posed it to the studio; Will the flowers survive if the water is mixed with food colouring? What a great question! This line of inquiry kickstarted another experiment, and we discussed how we could measure our results. We decided to leave the white flowers in the coloured water for a week and the other flowers from the same bouquet in regular water and see if we can observe any differences.
On Tuesday, the learners took some time to arrange the flowers into vases. They placed them around the studio for us all to enjoy! We then started reading The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle, which got us thinking about what seeds and plants need to grow. We discussed how plants need sun, air, soil and water to thrive. We read another book called How Flowers Grow, which explained more in-depth what flowers need. We were also interested to learn about how flowers adapt and grow in places like the desert, rainforest, and even submerged in water! Knowing seeds need the sun to grow, we began our next experiment, growing sunflower seeds in our studio window. We have made little greenhouses for them using plastic bags and paper towels. We are so excited to see what happens over the next week!
Wednesday started by reading the beautiful story The Curious Garden by Peter Brown. This book is about a city that no longer has any trees or flowers. One day, a little boy discovers a wildflower garden growing on the abandoned railway line. He becomes a gardener and starts caring for the flowers and planting around the city. Soon other people join in, and the town begins to transform! The Sparks were so captivated by the beautiful illustrations and this story. They loved to see the changes that happened by the end of the book. After the book, we discussed the garden planter and canoe in our fenced-in play area. We talked about how we could plant flowers there to beautify the space and provide pollinators food. We started wildflower, milkweed and black-eyed Susan seeds in a greenhouse, and we are looking forward to watching them grow and planting them outside at the beginning of the next session. We also started bean seeds in pots in the window.
The Sparks explored their artistic sides on Thursday, starting with an observational painting. While we listened to music, the learners used our flower bouquet to inspire their pictures. We then read Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt, which explores the journey over a year above and below ground and the animals and insects that live in and under the garden. Afterwards, we started our next experiment. We are testing if plants need light to grow. We filled three cups with grass seed and placed one in the window, one in the back of the class and one inside a paper bag. We will continue to water all three as needed and observe the rates as they grow. We read We Are the Gardeners to end our week and then headed outside to prepare the outdoor garden beds for planting.
Art
This week's guided art workshop was to create paper plate flowers, incorporating the parts of the flower we have been learning about. First, the learners coloured some soil on their paper and then cut up a white string for the roots. They used green construction paper to make the stem and leaves. Lastly, they cut triangles into their paper plate to decorate the petals with bingo daubers! The end result was beautiful!
Math
For our Tuesday Math Meeting, we returned to estimation. This week they broke off into partners and were all shown groups of items. They observed the collections and then talked with their partner to make an estimate. Each team wrote their guess on a whiteboard and held it up to show their thinking. We then counted the items together as a group and discovered how close our estimates were to the actual answers.
Storytelling Workshop
The Sparks were excited to add some new props to their storytelling this week, which included pretend plants, leaves, flowers and money! They got into groups and were challenged to incorporate the elements of a story, such as a title, characters, beginning, middle and end. We always enjoy seeing the ideas, excitement and group work during storytelling workshops!
French
On Monday, we worked on a colouring exercise to learn the names of some flowers in French, and we learned a song to remember the prepositions of places (on, under, in front of, behind, next to). Tuesday, we went to the gym to play several games to review our colours, numbers, animals, fruits, and vegetables, and Wednesday, we completed a craft to learn the names of some insects in French. We read the book POP, a seek-and-find game, to review our numbers and learn the words, how many, where, and here on Thursday.
Additional Highlights
The Sparks loved putting on a Boomwhacker performance at the last Exhibition and want to continue practicing! They have selected a new warm-up, a special song to play, and a song to sing at our next Exhibition night. We can't wait for you to hear what they have been working on! This week, a few brave learners also stood in front of the studio and performed their own unique songs or dances that they had made up. A couple said they don't usually perform in front of an audience. We are so proud of them and happy they are comfortable sharing their talents with their community!
As Guides, we are always looking for ways to make the studio even more independent and learner-driven, with the goal of making our role even smaller. One of the Guides challenged herself to answer as few questions as possible this week. We discussed with the learners where or how they could get any questions answered they might have. For example, checking posted schedules or asking a peer. To help hold the guide accountable, the learners would put a tally mark on the board anytime a question was answered. We also met with the Sparks and asked them how they felt studio maintenance has been going. The learners expressed some issues and frustrations about our clean-up at the end of the day. The Guides had noticed it could have been more learner-led. With us stepping back more, who will help lead? With that in mind, we have elected our first Spark Squad leader. This Rebel's job is to oversee studio maintenance, ensure everyone gets their job done and support where needed. We are excited about this new leadership position and have seen the learners holding each other accountable and completing their studio maintenance to a higher level in just two days!
Discovery Studio
Mindfulness
Monday's Mantra was "I breathe and build my mindful network." Using the five-finger breathing technique as inspiration, the Rebels tried to map out at least five things that help them feel calm and ready when they feel sleepy, sad, anxious or angry. Tuesday morning, Rebels selected Mindful Mazes and a zen music playlist for Mindful Colouring. On Wonder Wednesday, the Rebels worked in teams to complete skyscraper puzzles. Thursday morning, the Rebels considered the following quote in their journals: "Avoidance will make you less vulnerable in the short run, but it will never make you less afraid." Some shared what they wrote and discussed it in many different aspects of life, from Core Skills goals to dealing with conflict with a friend. Feel-Good Friday, we wrapped up the week with one of our best Boomwhackers performances to date!
Launches
Monday morning's Launch equipped the Rebels to consider how kindness can be a language. They discussed what kindness sounds like or looks like and how their actions and comments can be like a domino in a chain. If they do not reciprocate a chain of unkindness, they break the cycle and can start a new wave of kindness instead. Tuesday's Launch was intended to inspire and connect the Rebels, discussing drones and what the Exploration Rebels are learning about for their quest. We watched the beginning of a cool clip about the company Zipline, which has used drones to deliver life-saving blood orders from doctors to half a million people over the past several years! Wednesday's mid-week Squad Check-Ins asked the Rebels to discuss their non-negotiable task for the day - what did they absolutely need to get done that day to stay on track with their weekly goals? Thursday morning, the Rebels reviewed a poster for the studio about what safety feels like in their bodies, equipping them with warning signs that something may be unsafe. They added three signs to the poster that weren't there already: change in breathing, busy brain or anxious thoughts and wanting to leave/retreat from a situation. Friday's Current Events featured a special report on Pygmy Marmosets, a debate on whether or not Police Officers should wear uniforms when visiting elementary schools, and a hilarious Live From Snack Time reel!
French
As we are always looking for ways to connect with our learners and their interests, this week we played a couple of Kahoots, one on how to ask questions and then one on Disney princesses to check our comprehension of the French questions. Then on Thursday, we played "Find someone who..." Bingo to practice asking questions like "Who has a bike?" or "Who has a cat?".
We got our hands dirty in our French Gardening Workshop this week as the Rebels finally planted their seeds in their little greenhouses!
Reader/Writer
On Monday, Rebels completed an editing challenge in record time! Focusing on Conventions this session (one of the Six Traits of Writing) with a weekly challenge to find and edit ten errors in a paragraph; this was the first week Rebels found all ten as a team! Our editing challenges have sparked great discussion on sentence structure, spelling debates, proper punctuation for pronouns, and when to use than/then and other homophones. Rebels jumped into their third writing workshop with this week's choice between two prompts: "How to Care for a Labricorn" and "The Mystery of the Snail Detectives." Rebels are working on writing challenges each week that reviews many of the writing genres we explored this year. This week's prompts allowed Rebels to demonstrate their ability to generate a "How-To" list or develop a fictional mystery story in script or paragraph format.
Math Lab
The business owners met in their BIAs again this week and continued to work through their projected budgets and schedule clients for their services. In particular, the Animal Care Club made important decisions about how many supplies to buy within budget and started to calculate food costs based on their bookings. The Babysitters' Club worked away on time management based on extra services they might provide clients, such as dish-washing, baking, or cleaning. Over at Lawnmower's Inc., the entrepreneurs worked out eight weeks of projected revenue based on their bookings. They developed a transportation plan to ensure they have enough travel time to get to and from their various neighbourhood job sites.
Quest
On Monday, the Rebels watched a short clip of a world-class example of a secondary school theatre production. They discussed all the different work that they noticed would have gone into it - for example: how do costumes and lighting help convey that some actors are in a scene and others are the thoughts of the main character? For rehearsal, we started blending the director's cue ("3,2,1, action!"), with lighting cues and blocking where the chorus should be on stage during the three musical numbers. Tuesday's rehearsals started incorporating more detailed blocking as characters interact and some choreography in the musical numbers. Wednesday and Thursday, the Rebel workstreams continued to come together, layering more blocking, choreography, set design, and props to each scene.
Civilizations
This week the Rebels explored a research template to help them organize and track the information they will gather for their Middle Ages Museum project. We talked about four important details that they should capture every time they use a source: the title, the author or creator, the age and the type. We had a great discussion about how to know if a source is credible or share-worthy and what to do when in doubt.
Physical Development
On Monday, we played a game of Dragon Egg, a dodgeball game where one of the players has a pompom to hide in their pocket; when that person is tagged, the other team wins the game. All strategies were allowed to prevent the other team from guessing who had the pompom.
On Wednesday, the Rebels tried two new activities: striker-ball as a warm-up and then a cooperative game called Cross the River! They worked on striking and fielding skills in striker-ball, creating a circle of "net" space, simultaneously defending their net, and trying to strike the ball (or balls!) toward their opponents. In Cross the River, the Rebels had to strategize to safely transfer all team members from one side of the gym to the other with limited equipment and without touching the floor.
Additional Highlights
This is just a reminder to purchase tickets for Matilda: The Hero's Journey Musical and send your Rebel's baby photos to the Discovery email address by Friday, May 12th!
Exploration Studio
Mindfulness and Launches
We began our week with an alphabet challenge where learners were given a series of initials and had to come up with people or characters who matched the set. If another team had the same person listed, the point didn't count; however, if it was an original entry, that team earned the point. After our brain warm-up, we learned about the Turing Test. Sometimes misconstrued as defining whether "robots can think," Alan Turing's proposition was just a bit more specific; can robots imitate humans to the point of a human listener not being able to distinguish between the two (this is also known as The Imitation Game)? We learned how The Turing Test came to be, who and what passed it, and what it means with the profound changes due to artificial intelligence. Tuesday morning's yoga flow featured a balanced breathing challenge: matching the inhale count with the exhale count. We ended by engaging our physical balance with a tree pose. We then held an Agree/Disagree discussion on a few topics, including hiring someone you know who had legal trouble ten years prior.
On Wednesday, our Apprenticeship Launch focused on how it is more than fair to account for money and quality of life in your work. Still, here at Revel, changing the world is plausible and the chief motivator of those striving to be heroes. We recognize that it can be challenging to ignite or find this passion in the first place, so a great way to start is to scan the world and see what is missing or wrong. What opportunities exist, and what injustices are being committed that warrant your time and talent? For perspective, we listened to Larry Lessig, who, to use his words, is "just a lawyer" but making genuine strides in correcting one of the worst problems America faces today. Learners also designed their avatar/transporter for our Apprenticeship Tracker board to help them stay on track!
May the Fourth Be With You! After our yoga session, we watched an old favourite, "Seagull Stop it Now," a Star Wars Bad Lip Reading video, and learned to draw Baby Yoda. For Free Choice Friday, Rebels played chess, worked on puzzles, and painted before attending our Rebel-led Current Events Launch.
Math Lab
This week's task was all about Candle Burning! The Rebels estimated how long it would take for a candle to burn completely and revised their estimates in greater detail as timestamps were revealed with the height of the candle. They practiced organizing this information into a table of values and plotting the data points on a graph to find a pattern. Many immediately noticed that the burn rate was not constant. We had great conversations comparing and contrasting back to last week's discussion about direct or partial variation in linear patterns. Noticing that the candle burning was not proportional, an understanding of scatter plots and practice creating lines of association or best fit emerged!
Reader/Writer
How should schools adapt to best prepare students for the future with AI becoming more and more accessible in schools? Imagine a Rebel submitted a Reader/Writer assignment that was generated by ChatGPT, with only a few changes made by the learner. Would you approve it and give this Rebel their badge? When learning to read and write, how can we authenticate the process? These were just a few of the questions Rebels tackled during their Writer's Workshop this week. As we are nearing the final weeks of the session, Rebels wrapped up our deep dive on subject-specific AI questions and will be preparing their writing topics to attempt to write a more robust written response than ChatGPT in Week 5.
Quest - Programming & Drones
This week we began by working toward understanding and using procedures and functions in preparation for our Exhibition drone dance! First, we watched a few examples to get inspired and brainstorm what to include in our dances to feel successful. The Rebels decided they wanted various shapes, loops, synced movements, and flips! They then brainstormed a list of songs for their music and voted to have two performance groups with five drones each. With the remaining time, we learned about synchronization and how the learners will use timing or rhythm to code the drones to coordinate with the music. We learned about beats per minute (BPM) and tempo before putting our hearing to the test. We listened to "Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynyrd Skynyrd, listening for the beats per minute. Groups then used "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper or "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor, which have a BPM close to 100 to code a test mission for fun!
With the songs picked and the groups made, the Rebels listened to their chosen music and began planning their routine on Tuesday. The focus of this challenge is to sync commands to the selected music, which may sound simple; however, keeping the timing of commands can be quite difficult! Learners must use variations of the hover and speed blocks to balance movement with music. Groups began mapping out the complexity and the visual experience they would like to provide. To do that, before coding, they needed to measure and map out the area in which they would be flying, consider battery life, and take into account potential mistakes and retakes. They spent the rest of the week brainstorming their dance moves and developing a routine. We were impressed with the cooperation and incorporation of each team member's ideas in the dance!
During their test flights, the Rebels noticed various factors that could affect the accuracy of the coded mission. We are still experiencing some issues with interference and connectivity, with many Rebels having to troubleshoot and work through frustration consistently. When trying to choreograph the drones, the Rebels have observed that different phones and iPads connect differently, making synchronization difficult. We hope this next week of planning and troubleshooting will result in a closer approximation for the dance they have mapped out.
Apprenticeship
This week learners were asked to continue their exploration of industries, companies, and jobs/positions they were interested in, noting why each appealed to them. After reading the Opportunities and Injustices note aloud, Rebels thought about two opportunities and two injustices that excited or angered them to push them to think about problems they may want to solve, not just a career title. By the end of the week, Rebels submitted a list of ten apprenticeships they were interested in pursuing in the future before narrowing it down to five.
Rules without Rulers
This week, we explored Cloud Governance. After explaining that though the idea is a little abstract, we could think of this system as being able to choose your government regardless of territory, like you would decide whether to subscribe to Netflix or Disney+. All governing would happen online, and you could switch if dissatisfied. We then read an article in
favour and watched a video against Government-as-a-Service before discussing and debating if Blockchain and Cloud Governance are well equipped to deal with future challenges. We also wrote a pros and cons list before trying to think of ways to adapt the model to address the skepticism.
French
This week, we prepared small debates in teams of two based on the following questions: For or against space travel? Is Messi better than Ronaldo? Is the book always better than the movie? Then in our French Carpentry Workshop, we practiced using a sander, drill, and jigsaw!
Launchpad
Book reviews, philosophy, maths, and more! Our Launchpad Rebels were very productive during their core skills periods this week.
Civilization
On Monday, learners had time to work on their research and begin their presentation on a challenge that a modern form of government has faced. They must summarize their research and lead a short dialogue with their peers that covers the Rules Without Rulers framework questions. On Thursday, we explored Cloud Governance. After explaining that though the idea is a little abstract, we could think of this system as being able to choose your government regardless of territory, like you would decide whether to subscribe to Netflix or Disney+. All governing would happen online, and you could switch if dissatisfied. We then read an article in
favour and watched a video against Government-as-a-Service before discussing and debating if Blockchain and Cloud Governance are well equipped to deal with future challenges. We also wrote a pros and cons list before trying to think of ways to adapt the model to address the skepticism.
Programming and Drones
This week, our Launchpad Rebels completed two drone challenges. The first was to work out the probability of a drone flipping in various directions. The second was to code their drone around a series of obstacles. Great job!
Genetics
This week in Genetics, learners demonstrated their knowledge of complex patterns before diving deep into Pedigrees. After reading and taking notes, they were asked to analyze multiple lines and practice constructing pedigrees with the information provided. On Tuesday, they learned about the Chi-Squared Test and were given the keys to their Pedigree work to check for misunderstandings. This week, significant time was also provided for the learners to design their own species! Each Rebel created an imaginary species and traits that follow the genetic rules we have studied, including two complete dominance traits, one codominant trait, one incomplete dominance trait, one multiple allele trait, and one sex-linked trait. They needed to describe or sketch each of the traits, listing genotypes and phenotypes for each. They also had to draw two examples of their creature with different genotypes, with the complete genotype listed for all traits. Picking one of their single allele traits, they created a sample pedigree with a minimum of four generations before completing a dihybrid cross using the two single allele traits and the phenotypic ratios. Lastly, they created five practice problems to trade with one another to solve! To end the week, Rebels extracted DNA from strawberries on Thursday and were surprised by the
Artificial Intelligence
How should schools adapt to best prepare students for the future with AI becoming more and more accessible in schools? Our Launchpad used a series of guiding questions to develop and explain their thoughts on ChatGPT, including how and what it should be used for, potential job loss, giving a private corporation free human feedback they will then use to charge in the future, and how we can take advantage of these tools while still developing our skills.
Independent Projects
The Ottawa Children's Business Fair was a HUGE success thanks to the incredible organization and coordination by our Launchpad Rebel! Needing time to reflect, they took this week to carve and will return to wrap up any loose ends next week with their co-coordinator.
Additional Highlights
"A novelist is a failed short story writer, and a short story writer is a failed poet." William Faulkner
With his creation of the six-word story, Ernest Hemingway combined poetry and drama into a short form that has grown in popularity while remaining challenging to achieve. After reading some world-class examples, the Launchpad Rebels enjoyed coming up with a few of their own!
After a rainy and cold week, the Launchpad Rebels chose to make chilli to deliver to Highjinx on Friday. It was well received and as always, a highlight of our learners' week.
Potential Discussion Ideas or Questions to Ask Your Rebel:
Spark
What are the four things a flower needs to grow?
What are the parts of a flower called?
How many days do you think it will take for your sunflower seed to start to grow? What about the bean seeds?
French: How do you say « Here » in French? (ici)
Discovery
What is more difficult in Math Lab: business tasks like balancing budgets and scheduling or managing your time to ensure all the work gets done by the end of the session?
What are you most excited about before the final week of rehearsals before your big show? What are you nervous about?
French: How do you say "who" in French? (Qui)
Exploration
What is direct or partial variation, and how is this the same or different from a scatter plot with a line of best fit?
What topic will you choose to write about when you create your written assignment to compare with ChatGPT next week in Reader Writer?
Did your drone perform the commands according to a consistent time, or did you notice discrepancies in the time it takes to execute certain commands?
What did you notice helped or hindered the consistency of your mission? Did launching from a different area of the room make a difference in coordinating flights to BPM?
What are your top five apprenticeship options?
French: What woodworking tool are you most looking forward to using?
Launchpad
Which Shakespeare play did you choose for Session 7?
Tell me about the species you designed in genetics!
Is Cloud Governance a viable option for the future of government? Why or why not?
Dates of Interest
Spark and Discovery Field Trip to Ottawa Children's Festival: Thursday, May 11th, 10:30 am-1:30 pm
Session 6 Exhibitions
Exploration Studio Exhibition and Living Library - Thursday, May 16th 4:15 pm to 6:00 pm
Discovery Matilda Performance: Wednesday, May 17th *OFF-SITE* at UOttawa's Leonard Beaulne Studio - see BAND for details.
Spark Exhibition: Thursday, May 18th 4:15 pm-5:00 pm