Specialists

Visual Arts

This term students in the junior school have been learning about shape, one of the seven elements of Art.  Inspired by the nursery rhyme “Hey Diddle Diddle” the Preps created some fantastic circular moons for their cows to jump over.   The activity provided a lot of scope for the students to practise their cutting skills.

The latest task for the Year 1 and 2 students was designed to teach them the skills of collage and printing. Students initially cut geometric shapes from coloured paper and glued them, evenly spaced, on their background paper.  The following week they printed a selection of shapes over the top of the previous week’s work.  The students had fun practising the different skills and produced some neat and colourful results.

Sport

Students from prep to grade 6 have been enjoying our AFL clinics during physical education lessons.  The coaches from AFL Victoria have been helping students focus on developing their handballing and kicking skills.

French

• In Prep, the students have done their portfolio activity. After watching the following video of Trotro the Donkey, they listened to my colouring instructions. The challenge was for them to understand the colours in French.

Here is the beautiful work of Harriet, who got all the colours right:

As you can see, the students were very focused during this task:

• In Grade 1, we are starting a new topic. The students are learning various ways to say 'Hello' or 'Goodbye', depending on the situation or time of the day.

• In Grades 3 and 4, we have started a cultural study of the magnificent Dordogne region and its prehistoric UNESCO World Heritage sites. The students are learning new vocabulary to describe the life of cavemen. The following task was done as a whole class. The students had to use the list of new vocabulary to guess the translation of the words under the pictures. They did very well!

Dordogne is also known as 'The Valley of 1000 Castles':

• The Grade 5/6 students are getting ready to play 'Qui est-ce?' (Guess Who). They will have to use all the vocabulary they have memorised and learn how to ask various questions. I won't allow them to use any English words in their questions and answers. It is going to be challenging and fun. I will post a video in the next newsletter.

Have a great weekend everyone! A bientôt!

STEAM

The prep students have been learning how to log-in into the laptops and to their own code.org accounts. Once in their coding programs, they have been learning how to drag and drop and other control features of computers.  They have also been using the Blue-Bots and programming them to follow a path. This builds on their location mathematical skills such as left, right, forward and backward.

Grades 1 and 2 students have also been practising logging into the laptops and into their code.org accounts. While doing coding, they have participated in activities involving getting the squirrel to his acorn and helping the angry bird to avoid the TNT!  When using the Blue-Bots, the students have worked in small groups to program the Blue-Bots to travel from one location to another while steadily building on these skills to guide the Blue-Bots on more difficult paths.

In grades 3 and 4, students have been using Tynker to practise their coding skills.  In small groups, they have started to use our new Vex Go construction sets. These sets were generously donated to the school by the PFA and the students have enjoyed exploring what the kits include by building the tallest flag pole, and then constructing their own Mars buggies for an astronaut to travel around in.  The Vex Go construction systems contain all parts, motors and electronics that will bring STEM learning to life.

Grade 5/6A are now exploring how light travels as part of the physical sciences. Over the past 2 weeks, they have participated in hands-on experiments that look at how light travels and how shadows are formed.