Revel Recap: Oct. 28 - Nov. 1, 2024
Spark Studio
Mindfulness and Launch
It's the second week of the session, and we continue exploring the world of architecture! On Monday morning, each Spark received a designated building for which to design blueprints, allowing them to explore their imagination and planning skills. They then crafted a design plan detailing their materials, mainly focusing on how they would transform cardboard into essential features like windows, doors, and even gas pumps. On Tuesday, we introduced a unique auditory experience by listening to a podcast called "Building Towns and Cities: Planning and Architecture Explained for Kids." This engaging podcast took the Sparks on an imagination tour of town planning, full of delightful surprises about different architectural styles in London, England. They also explained that it is essential to start with a plan when building something. Midweek, we shifted gears to embrace the spirit of Halloween with a themed yoga session. This activity promoted mindfulness and allowed the Sparks to express themselves through movement. The excitement continued on Thursday as the Sparks walked the red carpet for a costume fashion show, showcasing their awesome Halloween costumes to family and friends! Our Friday Current Event presentation included a story from Mississauga, where a condominium was built and sold without bathrooms on the floor plan. The Sparks were asked questions such as, "What would you do if your home did not come with a bathroom?" and "Would you have noticed the missing room?"
Quest
Get ready for your learners to come home and explore building something new, whether building with recyclables or maybe wanting to renovate a room in their home! To kick off our cardboard building week, the learners were introducedto new tools in the studio. The Makedo kit is an open-ended system of tools for creative cardboard construction purposely designed for children. Inside the kit, there are fold rollers that are perfect for creating fold lines to sculpt cardboard like a pro, safe-saws which effectively cut through cardboard, and scru-drivers and scrus which are easily and firmly connected to layer cardboard. Although these are Spark-safe, we still reviewed safety protocols when using the tools, including not placing them on the ground, walking with them by their side, and working near a guide.
When building, the Sparks agreed there must be a plan. To start, they were given a piece of land (a table), their designated permit for building. Using carved-out cardboard streets, they collaborated and designed the city route and where they will plot each structure. The Guides brought real-world scenarios to their daily Quest challenges to remind them that if contractors become behind schedule, they will need to work "overtime."
As the end of the week approached, the learners had to complete the finishing touches on their buildings, such as windows and doors. The learners then placed their building on their land to have a vision of what it would look like for the Exhibition. This week, the learners were great at asking one another for help if they needed it and recognized that if they finished their building, the job wasn't over. They went on to help others and build more structures for the city.
Art
As many locations worldwide have signs, street lights, and nature surrounding them, the Sparks got to work to contribute to the city they are designing for Quest. Learners used cardboard and construction paper to make things come to life. We can't wait to share this magical piece of dedicated learning with families on Exhibition Day!
Math Lab
This week, Group One continued their study of addition with the introduction of the Addition Snake Game. This Montessori material allows the learners to experience addition sensorily through using the hands-on counting beads. It also provides practice with linear counting, helps learners to see the possible number combinations that make up ten, and helps them to practice memorizing the addition facts. Each learner had a chance to practice with this material, which will be available on the math shelves to continue using during their independent work periods. We then practiced writing addition facts using our Halloween loose parts. We made the equations together as a group, counting the loose parts separately as each addend, putting them together and writing them down on our boards. It was a great visual reminder of the definition of addition and provided practice in writing our math symbols. Meanwhile, Group Two continued with patterns. Once introduced to number patterns, they reflected on the counting chains to help them with skip counting and patterns. When providing the learners with seven patterns with missing numbers, they used their addition and subtraction skills to find the missing number. Great job, Sparks!
French
This week in French, we celebrated Halloween! On Monday and Tuesday, we coloured a monster to practice the vocabulary of emotions and body parts. Group 2 also had time to colour a Halloween mask to review the parts of the face, such as eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and more! On Thursday, as usual, we played in the gym to brush up on our learning through play.
Reader/Writer
This week, Group One learned our next two letters, E and N. After learning the phonetic sounds for both, the learners shared words they could think of that started with these sounds and listened to a fun song. We then traced the sandpaper letters and repeated the sound three times each. Next, we revisited all the letters we learned this year (S, A, T, M, P, I, E, and N), reviewed the sounds, and practiced writing their uppercase and lowercase letters on whiteboards. The learners have a good understanding of these phonetic sounds. It's a great time to encourage them at home to blend some of them to practice making CVC words that are formed using the sounds they know!
Group Two dove right into their book study! We re-read the story to recap what has happened along the way. The learners practice with spelling and printing when asked to explain the beginning, middle and end of the tale. Following this, they wrote six fun Halloween costumes, as this book explores Halloween and is not just about dressing up but about community, memories, fun, and giving.
Geography
The Sparks journeyed through North America's top ten largest cities this week. Using the globe, we located many of the cities, some of which are capitals or well-known places the Sparks have been, such as Montreal, New York City, and Toronto. The word "population" kept popping up during our research, so we explored that term together. To end the lesson, the Sparks partnered and used the KEVA planks to build a city. Many learners were making giant towers, homes, and airports.
Additional Highlights
This week was filled with a variety of exciting activities! To start, we had two special birthday celebrations in the studio! The Sparks sang happy birthday, shared some milestones over their years and had special treats to celebrate. On Wednesday, the school participated in the Gourd Gallop. Thanks to the Launchpad Rebels, the Sparks had a great route they followed and enjoyed their run in the gorgeous fall weather. They all received a grand prize of a gourd. Way to go, Sparks!
As you can imagine, the topic of Halloween was front and center throughout the week. The Sparks enjoyed an afternoon of trick-or-treating hosted by the Exploration Studio on Thursday.
Lastly, the Sparks found themselves in the gym more frequently throughout the week. The learners played many games, such as Red Light, Green Light, and 10-second objects.
Discovery Studio
Mindfulness and Launch
Last week, Rebels gave feedback about how to raise the level of civility in our studios, and one of their suggestions was to incorporate more team-building. So, for mindfulness this Monday, Rebels participated in a game called "Yes Let's!" In this activity, Rebels take turns calling out improv prompts like Let's be angry cats or Let's have a nap on the floor, and the only two rules of the game are that you respond, "Yes, let's!" and then mime the prompt. After we played, we reviewed the benefits of improv on the brain, focusing on how it increases tolerance of uncertainty and reduces anxiety. For Launch, we were visited by two Exploration Rebels from this year's Yearbook Committee! They told us all about the expectations for the yearbook cover contest and that submissions are due Monday, November 4th. Then, to celebrate the beginning of Halloween week, Ms. Amy asked for a list of different body parts and then rolled a dice to determine how many eyes, legs, mouths, ears, and horns our monsters had to have! The Rebels then got busy creating their creations.
For Tuesday's Mindfulness Walk, we noticed several changes outside. We observed that there were fewer leaves on the trees, that it was colder, and that several homes had Halloween decorations out and pumpkins carved. Tuesday's Launch was a Rebel-led game of Blooket featuring questions about the Rebel host. Thank you for a fun way to get to know a member of our leadership team!
Wonder Wednesday's round of New York Times puzzles presented quite a challenge. While we solved the Wordle with only one guess to spare, working through the Mini Crossword took longer than usual. However, the Rebels crushed the Connections game this week, finding the most challenging category first and solving it with only one life lost! For Launch, we continued to work on our Joy Workbook. This week, we considered different activities we would enjoy while thinking about our themes. For example, If my themes are nature, physical activity and silliness, I might want to participate in the Colour Run or the Mud Run.
Thursday was Halloween! We had our Halloween Red Carpet Walk, where the Rebels strutted their stuff to show off their amazing costumes for the Revel community.
Friday's Current Events report was all about Halloween. We saw some pictures of cute dogs in Halloween costumes from New York City, learned a bit about the History of Halloween, and then participated in an all-about Halloween Quiz.
Math Lab
This week's Math Lab challenges were about helping Ms. Mel pack and fit her belongings on a moving van! In the first sequence of tasks, Rebels explored patterns that can be found in repeated addition and multiplication by playing around with different arrangements (or arrays) of moving boxes in rows. We started with fact families involving single digits 2-9, then moved to various groupings of ten, and finally, for Aim and Release Rebels, computation with less friendly factors like "What if Ms. Mel had 42 rows of 8 boxes?" After warming up our multiplicative thinking, we focused on the moving van. There are so many different sizes to choose from! Rebels had to consider how long the perimeter walk would be as they inspected the van for any scratches or flat tires, how many boxes could fit on the floor area of the van, and lastly, how many stacked boxes in total could fit inside based on its height. We used linking cubes to model our problem-solving!
Reader/Writer
Draw and Anchor Rebels continued reflecting and writing on their Journey Meeting script. Next week, the Rebels will create and send invitations to their families to schedule their Journey Meeting.
Aim/Release Rebels worked on finishing their progress report and script, and some even had time to create an invitation to send to their journey meeting. Next week, we will continue to work on our invitations and practice for our journey meetings through role play.
Civilizations
This week's chapter of Story of the World told the tale of William Bradford and the Mayflower that sailed the pilgrims who settled at Plymouth Plantation to North America. The stories highlighted the push factors of the era, specifically how people practiced religion in Europe and how English Separatists were taxed and treated differently. Rebels mapped areas to show Dutch, English, and French settlements in particular and discussed what decisions they would have faced around this time. Would they have left their children in Europe knowing the voyage to North America would be dangerous or kept their family together? What would be more critical to establishing a successful settlement: peace treaties and cooperation with knowledgeable Indigenous peoples, or the hard work and determination of the settlers?
French
This week in French, the two groups practiced descriptions. Now that we've finished drawing our monster in Group 1, we started writing its description. Does it have big teeth or small teeth? What colour is it? In Group 2, we're continuing to read the book "Le grand livre des monstres- secrets et légendes" to practice our reading comprehension.
Quest
In our second week of this session's Quest, the Rebel Architects focused on DESIGN. However, in order to be officially promoted to architect status, Rebels needed to demonstrate excellence and precision in their Week 1 Research challenges. On Monday, teams met with each other for peer approvals in terms of their Revel blueprint work, as well as measuring and scale tasks. Once approved, they turned to heroes of architecture for inspiration as they began to dream up designs for a new school! We discussed the pendulum swing between innovation in design and accommodation in design and introduced the two prizes that our architect teams will be competing for at the upcoming Revel Academy Architectural Digest Gala Exhibition! One team will be awarded the Innovation Award, and one will be awarded the Most Likely to be Built Award. Winning teams will have a guaranteed Fun Friday together in Session 3 to build a LEGO set and enjoy a treat of their choice. However, to win, teams must develop and then present at Exhibition an architectural sketch of a school that accounts for how its users will feel and function, turn this into a scaled floorplan with an elevation rendering and build a 3D model. Rebels were also provided with nine items listed on a Building Code sheet, essentially outlining things their building design must have to be built. On Tuesday, a few teams began sketching their ideas while others worked hard to get approvals through from Week 1. On Wednesday, we looked at how different scales affect the size of a floor plan, comparing a 1 cm: 1-foot scale to a 1cm: 2-foot scale to a ⅛ inch: 1-foot architectural scale. Thursday's topic was elevation renderings, where Rebels began to think about what the exterior of their school would look like and how they could show it in a drawing.
Physical Development
With all the fun events, physical development took a pause this week as the learners participated in the Gourd Gallop and an afternoon of trick-or-treating! Back to our regularly scheduled P.E. programs next week!
Additional Highlights
The true highlights of this week were all the community time that Rebels were able to take part in. From Wednesday's Gourd Gallop to Thursday's Halloween Red Carpet to the afternoon trick-or-treating, it's always heart-warming to see the young and older Rebels connect and spend time together.
Exploration Studio
Mindfulness and Launch
On Monday, we began with a free write in our mindfulness journals. Rebels chose from various prompts about how they are currently feeling, what they are grateful for, and their priorities for the week. They also completed an ICEE reflection on how the studio ran last Friday with the Guide away, noting that civility was high, but they could continue to work on intentionality. As we focus on plants this week in Quest, we learned about rainforest deforestation before participating in a Socratic discussion. They struggled with a few problems, such as, "Imagine you are the President of Brazil during one of the country's great economic recessions. The economy could improve if you changed laws to allow local farmers to cut down the rainforest to plant crops. You know that doing so will have dramatic climate impacts worldwide, but farmers are starving. What do you do? Allow farmers to cut down the rainforest to plant crops for their families and sell, or Allow farmers to starve and remain poor but save the rainforest for the world?"
Tuesday's mindful neighbourhood walk was brisk! Rebels enjoyed the cool air and conversations about what type of car they would buy if they could and why. Others chatted about dream career paths. We also marvelled at a patch of flowers that still has petals clinging on despite the recent cold snap. Learners then came in, and we reviewed the scientific method, the preferred format for a hypothesis (If, then, because), and the difference between independent and dependent variables and controls. To practice, we used an experiment many of them have seen before which demonstrates the capillary action of water in plants. After making our hypothesis and identifying the variables, Rebels got to work on core skills, coming over to note any changes to the flowers throughout the day.
We used our mindfulness and launch time on Wednesday to decorate our studio and trick-or-treating spaces for Halloween! Some learners crafted their own spooky decorations, while others used what we had in our holiday bins.
We started our Halloween festivities with our annual red carpet Fashion Show! It was great to see all of the fantastic costumes and personalities of the Rebels come out! Afterward, we discussed Halloween etiquette. We reminded ourselves only to take one unless offered more and say "thank you!" at each house!
On Friday, the Rebels showed that exhaustion from trick or treating and candy for breakfast doesn't stop them. They were on a roll, finishing a Wordle in three chances and a Connection puzzle with no missed guesses. They solved The Mini quickly, working as a team, and then we ran out of time on Letterboxed. We then had a brief Current Events presentation and learned about Diwali and Dia de los Muertos before diving into our last Core Skills period of the week.
Reader/Writer
This week, the learners began writing in their journals as a warm-up for their Journalism workshop. They reflected on the consequences of fake news going viral and whether they could spot fake news or an unreliable source. We then looked at an image of strange-looking daisies that were supposedly from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, which, on March 11th, 2011, had a major nuclear disaster. The image of the daisies we discussed apparently showed evidence that the conditions near the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant had improved. The picture was posted on Imgur, a photo-sharing website, in July 2015. We debated whether the image provided strong evidence that the conditions had improved. The Rebels did an awesome job identifying why it may not be a reliable source. Our Launchpad Guide then taught us about the OPVL (Origin, Purpose, Value, and Limitation) method for evaluating sources, and we practiced using a few different articles.
Civilizations
Two of the greatest philosophers from ancient Greece, Plato and Aristotle, disagreed about private property. Plato wanted to abolish private property because he believed it led to social divisions and conflicts. Despite being Plato's student, Aristotle believed ownership was natural and good for people to have private property. After Rebels individually completed some research, we came together to read an excerpt from The Politics by Aristotle and an excerpt from The Republic (in the form of a dialogue) by Plato. We then discussed private property and ownership and whether their opinion varied based on their financial status.
Math Lab
This week, the Rebels revisited the concept of note-making vs. note-taking before diving into more money-themed tasks. We began with a worked example from last week, comparing a deal of 12 water bottles for $7 versus 8 bottles for $4.50. We reviewed how to organize the information to find a unit rate by dividing the cost by the number of bottles. This was an example of note-taking, where someone is told what to write by someone else. Then, when we broke into our small teams to work together on tasks, Rebels took notes, including key information from the problem they would need to solve and could only hear the information, not see it. For example, Rebels were presented with various cell phone plans like Pay As You Go or a Basic Plan with different flat rates or per minute/per message charges. They tried to capture the details required to decide which phone plan is more reasonable. When teams were making decisions, they realized that not everyone would justify their cell phone use the same way, and we ended the task with a great discussion about what a reasonable monthly phone bill should be.
French
This week, we continued practising our past participles, whether used alone or with the verb être. Then, for Halloween, we played the Loup-Garou game to practice asking questions in French, this time using past participles in our questions.
Quest
Are plants alive? Plants lack our abilities, but that does not mean they lack the powers to shape the world; they have been doing it for billions of years. The ancestors of plants, bacteria, overloaded the biosphere billions of years ago with a newfound force – oxygen. This not only was responsible for an entire ice age, but even killing off living organisms. Are plants more or less powerful today than billions of years ago? Could sudden plant mutation end civilization as we know it? Or are other complex organisms advanced enough to overcome a global plant rebellion? After our opening discussion, Rebels reviewed the process of photosynthesis before conducting a virtual experiment and again using what we learned earlier to develop an If, then, because hypothesis and identify the independent and dependent variables as well as the controls. They then had time to conduct the experiment, which tested how a light source's distance, wattage, and colour affect the photosynthesis of a water plant called Elodea. Learners who finished early were able to challenge themselves with some extra credit cell challenges, which, if completed, could help their Scientist Team gain points for the sessional competition.
Have you ever wondered how plants take up water from the soil? Water uptake in plants is quite complex and involves a process called osmosis. On Tuesday, Rebels were given the necessary lab materials and set loose in their teams to complete it independently with the help of their lab instructions handout. Using potato samples and cups with various amounts of dissolved salt, Rebels measured any qualitative and quantitative differences in the potato after 30 minutes in the different solutions. At the end of the experiment, we met to debrief about what went well and what teams would do differently if they were to complete the experiment again. We also discussed our results and watched a video about osmosis and diffusion to help us connect what we just witnessed to how plants bring in water from the soil and how cells have semipermeable membranes and want to balance the concentration differences.
On Wednesday, we turned to Mendelian Genetics. We began by reading a book about Gregor Mendel and his work with peas. We learned new terms, including Punnet Squares, genetic crosses, genotype, phenotype, dominant and recessive alleles, homozygous, and heterozygous. Learners then played some online games and simulations to better understand what happens when you cross various combinations of alleles.
Thursday, we started Quest with an ethics discussion focused on plants. Rebels discussed if it was morally right to introduce living plants to other planets, such as Mars, whether all plants were equally valuable to society and should be preserved at all costs, and if it is ethical to ban the consumption of something grown in nature. We then learned about microscopes, how to care for them, use them, and calculate the magnification. As we only have three microscopes, Rebels had the choice to use the microscopes and sketch a slide of their choosing or play one of our biology games. Those who couldn't use the microscopes on Thursday will have time set aside to do so.
Additional Highlights
Wow, what a week! We finished our third read-aloud, The Long Way Down, and chose The Wild Robot as their next novel to listen to after such a heavy read.
Launchpad Studio
The Launchpad Rebels stepped up to help the community in many ways this week! From marking out the Gourd Gallop course to running Trick-or-Treating stations, our oldest learners were great models for what it means to be a Revel Rebel.
Communication/Literature
This week, we read Chapters 4 - 10 in Frankenstein before coming together to discuss our impressions and analysis on Friday. We discussed how Victor and Henry Clerval were similar and contrasted, why Victor might find the creature's appearance beautiful one minute and horrifying the next, and how Mary Shelley foreshadows more horrors in these chapters.
AP Language and Composition & AP Literature and Composition
This week's primary focus in the Language and Comp course was a reflection on last week's free-response question on ownership. There was also a multiple-choice exam for the unit to check for understanding.
Meanwhile, in Lit and Comp, our learner's week was spent studying Renaissance metaphysical poetry and irony using metaphysical conceit and poems on love and separation. They compared and contrasted To His Coy Mistress with My Last Duchess and wrote about the attitudes towards women in Renaissance poetry.
Canadian and International Law
This week, our learner drafted the narrative portion of their essay, with portions getting so specific as to go hour-by-hour of the arrests, warrants, and with specific quotes from employees, prosecutors, and even the Japanese METI (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Import), as well as finding more Japanese-language sources to substantiate the latter half of the piece.
AP Biology
This week began with a lab on the environmental effects mitosis to understand and calculate the percentage of time each phase of the cell cycle was designated. There was also a unit test on meiosis to demonstrate their understanding of last week's material.
Additional Highlights
This week, SAT Prep, Web Development, Python, Russian, French, Spanish, and various mathematics courses were also allocated time. Our learners also continued to develop courses and workshops for our younger Rebels on Journalism and utilizing AI in learner-driven education.
Potential Discussion Ideas or Questions to Ask Your Rebel:
Spark Studio
What did you make for the cardboard city?
What name did you suggest to call the city?
What was your favourite part of the week?
French: How do you say, "See you soon!" in French? (À bientôt)
Discovery Studio
Math Lab: What is the difference between perimeter, area, and volume?
Quest: With your architectural designs for a new school, are you aiming for the innovation award or the most likely to be built award?
French: What does your monster look like in French? Do you know all the French words to describe it?
Exploration Studio
Over the past few decades, countries and individuals worldwide have donated money to "Save the Rainforest." Who should be responsible for managing those funds?
Local Brazilian government leaders
Local Brazilian council of non-government leaders
International Council of Government Leaders
International non-government organization
Math Lab: How much do you think our family spends on cell phone plans/device plans? Is what we're paying reasonable? If not, are there ways to adjust our usage to save money or a better plan available?
Civ: A toga is your only possession, and as a student at Plato's Academy, you are standing in the courtyard listening to Plato and his star student, Aristotle, debate private property and ownership. Who do you side with? Does your answer change if you came from a noble family with a rich inheritance?
Plato – private property is the primary source of inequality in society
Aristotle – private property is what motivates work in society
For the treatment of diseases and illnesses, some cultures embrace pharmaceuticals, while others embrace plants. Which is more effective? Will there be a significant shift in the future?
French: Which character were you in the werewolf game? Were you able to ask questions in French?
Launchpad Studio
Victor says in Chapter 4 of Frankenstein, "None but those who have experienced them can conceive of the enticements of science. In other studies you go as far as others have gone before you, and there is nothing more to know; but in a scientific pursuit there is a continual food for discovery and wonder." Do you agree?
What part of your day brings you the most joy? What can we do to bring more light and levity to the studio?
Important Upcoming Dates
Yearbook Cover Contest Deadline: Monday, November 4th, 2024 at 9:00 am
Session 2 Exhibitions
Spark: Wednesday, November 20th at 4:15 pm
Discovery: Tuesday, November 19th at 4:15 pm
Exploration (DATE CHANGE): Wednesday, November 20th at 4:15 pm
Sessional Break and Camp: November 22nd & 23rd
School Pictures: Tuesday, November 26th