Student Voice

Visual Art

Last semester was a rollercoaster marathon with all the fantastic art work that the students completed. Here are some examples of their work:

House Art

Students from Foundation to Year 2 worked on a collaborative project. Each student received a ‘3D looking’ cube and decorated it with their name, house colour and favourite things. Once completed, we combined our cubes into a massive tesselated art piece that demonstrated both the bonds we share in our school community as well as the things that make us unique.

Cake Slices

Year 3 students, worked tirelessly creating cake sculptures. They used a mixture of modroc and magiclay to create their cake slices. They then decorated it with paint to make it look realistic. Don’t be fooled, they only look good enough to eat!

Penguin Painting Project

Year 4 students had the opportunity to participate in the Antarctic Festival by designing and painting a wooden penguin. These penguins have been shipped to Tasmania where they will be displayed as part of an installation at this year’s festival. The festival is scheduled to run from 24th - 28th August, 2022. 

Picasso Cow Program

 You may have heard your child talking about the cow at OPS. We received a life-size cow sculpture from Dairy Australia. Every student in the school was given the chance to vote for the cow’s name and now we would formally like to invite you to say hello to “Milky Way”. Students in the 5/6 area had the challenge of designing and painting the cow to suit the theme ‘Farm to Table’. They did an excellent job! This program was part of a competition organised by Dairy Australia. We will find out the results in late July.

Japanese

It’s hard to believe half the year is over! I’ve been very impressed by the curious questions surrounding Japanese culture from students and the resulting whole class discussions. Here are some snippets of what we get up to during Japanese lessons.

House Hiragana Competition

Students in Years 5 and 6 had the opportunity to battle it out to find which House could recognise the most hiragana characters (one of the Japanese writing systems). Some extra motivated students took home hiragana charts and studied hard, demonstrating their commitment with super quick recognition on the day of the competition. Logie eventually came out as the winner on the day. Congratulations to all students who participated!

Sister School

This term the Year 5 and 6 students will participate in a letter exchange with our Sister School, Nokendai Elementary School in Yokohama. We are all looking forward to building on that connection.

Tanabata Festival (7th July)

Tanabata is a Japanese festival meaning “Evening of the seventh.” Tanabata is originally based on a Chinese legend. It celebrates the meeting of two stars which are usually separated by the Milky Way and according to legend, only allowed to meet once a year; on the seventh day of the seventh month. This week, some students will write Tanzaku, paper strips containing their wishes and hang them from branches. Other students will make Tanabata decorations. At the end of the festival, traditionally the Tanzaku wishes are burned or set afloat on a river with hopes that they will come true.