Welcome to Session 4!
We are so excited to see all the Rebels and their families after the two-week break! To learn more about what each studio will be learning about in Session 4, read on!
Spark Studio
Quest
Welcome to Spark Air! During this session, the Sparks will board our airplane and stamp their passports on all seven continents. We will travel around the world to discover the culture, animals and marine life from the surrounding oceans. Our days will be filled with games, art, fun facts, architecture, dancing, music and more from all the wonderful places we visit. We can't wait for the adventure ahead!
Reader/Writer Workshops
For Reader/Writer, we will continue to work on our growing knowledge of flash and heart words and continue with our writing practice. Our mentor text for our book study will be Sneezy the Snowman. We will look at story elements, make predictions, complete character analysis, answer comprehension questions and more!
French
For this fourth session in French, the Sparks will be learning about the days of the week, the months, and seasons, as well as how to say the date in French.
Show & Tell
Show and Tell will once again be largely connected to our Quest. Please see the themes below:
Week 1 - Jan. 12: A picture from you/your family's travels
Week 2 - Jan. 19: An artifact/souvenir from a vacation/another country
Week 3 - Jan. 26: A flag (or picture of a flag) of another country where you have friends/family that live/have lived
Week 4 - Feb. 2: Choose your dream vacation spot and write a list of what you would pack
Week 5 - Feb. 9: Your favourite board game.
Week 6 - Feb. 16: Show and Tell of your choice!
Mystery Reader
We are also excited to announce that we will host our Mystery Reader tradition again! In the new year, we invite family members to sign up and read a book or two in the Spark Studio. The time will be from 3:30 to 3:50 pm, and a sign-up sheet will be posted on BAND. Feel free to bring one of your favourite picture books to share, or we have a wide variety to choose from at Revel. You will send us three facts about yourself the day before your visit, which will be posted for the Rebels to try and guess who our Mystery Reader will be! This is a fun surprise for the learners, who are always so excited to welcome guests into the studio!
Outdoor Fun
We are looking forward to more wintery weather ahead! We will be checking the forecast and will let you know ahead of time on Band when we plan to head to the tobogganing hill. We are also hoping to host a Spark Family Skating Afternoon when the rink is up and running!
Discovery Studio
Quest
Welcome to Session 4: Oceans! This session, our Quest theme takes us out into the water and under the seas, which comprise over 70 percent of our wonderful world. Rebels will become Marine Biologists for this six-week adventure, taking on the title of NASA Earth Explorers as they examine the following questions:
What problems are facing our oceans, and what are the possible solutions?
What is life like in the ocean, and how is it interconnected?
Is it more important to explore or to invent?
Using their imaginations, Rebels are challenged to bring the marine ecosystems into their studio, curating an environment of wonder about the natural world. Rebels will take what they've learned from each week's topics and challenges and present a significant problem and potential solutions affecting the world's oceans at the 2024 Our Oceans Conference Exhibition.
Reader/Writer
In Reader Writer, Rebels will create their first informative reports demonstrating their ability to read and use non-fiction texts to develop an informational resource. Rebels will select a marine animal of their choice and research their appearance, physical adaptations, habitat, diet, fun facts, predators, prey, and locations around the world, as well as discuss various threats to their species. Draw/Anchor Rebels will focus on organizing their research and notes, while Aim/Release Rebels will work towards creating a five-paragraph essay.
Math Lab
What do you see? This session's Math Lab theme is Ocean Animal Geometry! Rebels will create a series of ocean-themed art scenes as they investigate the attributes and properties of various shapes. Draw/Anchor Rebels will practice describing the position of their creatures relative to the rest of the scene, while Aim/Release will use grid and coordinate systems to explore shape translations and reflections. All Rebels will develop their understanding of part-whole relationships as they work to represent parts of their scene as fractions (and decimals for Aim/Release).
French
In this session in French, we'll be reading Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) together. The Little Prince is the world's second most translated book after the Bible and a story most French-speaking children read at school. Using the novel as our foundation, we will complete several related activities to learn more about French culture.
Exploration & Launchpad Studios
During Session 4, Launchpad and Exploration Rebels will again join forces for Quest and a few weekly workshops!
Quest: Entrepreneurship: Storytelling & Sales
This session will delve into age-old economic practices that have shaped civilization and the art of storytelling in the competitive realm of sales. Over the next six weeks, we will learn the value of a hook in advertising and the chain of action, starting with informing a customer of a need and then satisfying that need with your chosen product or service. Learners will explore several idea-generation tools and mental models and use various sims to learn more about unit economics, sales funnels, and the art of pricing. Rebels will also craft storyboards for their selected product or service in preparation for pitching to a focus group and, eventually, a panel of judges (think Dragon's Den) at the Exhibition for a website or marketing plan they propose to design to sell this product.
Math Lab
This session's Math Lab will be dedicated to a Logo Design Project! Rebels will begin by carefully investigating well-known brands' logos and discovering the mathematical properties and applications present, such as symmetry, tesselation and transformations. They will then expertly design their own logo by selecting and precisely measuring every detail: side lengths, types of quadrilaterals and triangles, angles, circles, and the relative area of their design components on the design space.
Reader/Writer
For Reader Writer in Session 4, Rebels will deeply dive into our first Book Club as we explore the world of Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem. Travelling back to the late 1600s, Rebels will explore the 17th-century saga that remains hauntingly resonant in our present day: the themes of cancel culture and why some struggle with an urgent need to find someone to blame for their misfortunes. As we read and discuss weekly chapters, Rebels will begin collecting and organizing notes to prepare for their first comparative essay as we examine the Salem Witch Trials and The McCarthy Trials in Session 5.
French
This session in French will be all about Journalism! To practice our reading comprehension and writing skills, we will read newspapers and write our own in French as a team.
Exploration Civilization
The next six weeks will be full of difficult discussions as we study the Great Depression and learn about the atrocities of World War II. Exploration Rebels will research and discuss Freyer and Schmitt, Hitler's Rise to Power, The Munich Agreement & Hitler-Stalin Nonaggression Pact, Wernher von Braun, the Holocaust, Truman and the Atomic Bomb, and Hiroshima. Learners will also be able to dive into an area of interest that wasn't covered in our lessons.
To further inform our opinions, hear a new perspective, and enhance our discussions, we will also be reading a couple of books on the time period, beginning with Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow by Susan Campbell Bartoletti, followed by either Hana's Suitcase, Night, or It Rained Warm Bread based on a Rebel vote.
Launchpad World History
Over the next six weeks, we will learn about Asia and the Medieval Times. We will specifically learn about the constant warfare during the Zhou Dynasty and Legalism, How Qin Shi Huang unified China, the Silk Roads, the Rise of Islam, Renaissance Humanism, Rational and Scientific Revolutions, the Protestant Reformation, Magna Carta and how the Mongol Dynasty Affected China.
Launchpad Canterbury Tales
Our Launchpad Rebels will tackle Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, beginning by reviewing satire and satirical devices before learning more about the Middle Ages and participating in Middle English vs Modern English language lessons. We'll then read the prologue to learn about the cast of characters before reading a few of the tales in depth to work on our reading comprehension and analysis skills.
Next Great Adventure
When a learner begins their journey at Revel Academy, they are choosing to take a more meaningful, more difficult path to becoming the best version of themselves. This means embracing the challenges, opportunities, and adventures that will prepare them for the real world, help them reach their potential, and lead them to fulfillment and gratitude when faced with life's big questions.
Two of our learners have taken on the challenge to complete an NGA talk this March alongside a group of teens from Acton Academies worldwide! This is a challenging undertaking and an incredibly courageous step. In Session 4, they will devote much of their time at Revel to complete the second Quest in the Next Great Adventure series: Choose To Do Something Hard in January. In February, they will be ready to begin crafting their Declaration Talks, a TED-like talk where learners pitch a clear next adventure, with a clear ask and promise, to people who can help them get there. Because of our standing in the Acton Academy Network, our learners are also eligible to compete for up to a $100,000 fellowship prize to help them in their pursuit!
Dates of Interest
Session 4 Exhibitions
Spark and Discovery Studio Exhibitions: Tuesday, February 13th at 4:15 pm
Exploration and Launchpad Studio Exhibitions: Thursday, February 15th
Field Trip dates will be posted shortly!