Specialist Team News

Performing Arts

The Curriculum Focus in Performing Arts

Year 1: Students have been learning a traditional song and dance from Kenya called “Kwa Heri”. This is a goodbye song written in Swahili. Students have also been learning about the minim note (ta-a) and are reviewing how pitch is written in music.

Year 2: Students have been reviewing the letters of the alphabet used in music to represent pitch. They have created a set of dance moves with a small group to create simple dance moves/actions to go with the letters. They have also reviewed the space notes of the treble clef: F A C E and have played a song called “Face It” on tuned percussion instruments.                  

Grade 3/4 – Students have begun learning about Calypso music and have started learning the song “Best Years of our Lives” on tuned percussion. They will also have a go at playing a part on the jumbie jams (steel drums) for this song.                                                    

Grade 5/6 – Students have learnt to play and sing “We will rock you” together in a class band using the marimbas and djembes as part of our lessons on ostinatos i.e. repeated patterns. Next up we will be focussing on polyrhtyhms where multiple rhythms are played at one time on the instruments.

Music Clubs

Choir 

This year the Willy Primary Choir will be run by Lynne Georgiadis on Wednesdays at lunchtime (1.40 – 2.10pm) in the Music room. 

This music club is open to all interested students in Year 1 – 6.

Marimba Band Timetable – Term 1

Rock Band Auditions – Term 1

This is the final week of auditions for the Music Clubs. Next Tuesday 11th March, a Band Selection Meeting will be held at lunchtime to announce the students who have been chosen to participate in this year’s bands. I would like to thank all the students who have put up their hand and had a go at auditioning. The musical standard, as always has been very high which makes selection a challenging task. Some students will be disappointed at not being selected which is understandable, but in true Willy Kid style we expect students to demonstrate resilience and be able to bounce back from any disappointment.

Warm regards,

Faye Ferry & Lynne Georgiadis

Performing Arts Teachers   

Physical Education

Fortnightly Curriculum Focus in Physical Education

• Prep: Practicing movement patterns through games that develop coordination and spatial awareness.
• Year 1 & 2: Engaging in activities that enhance jumping, landing, and balancing skills.
• Grade 3/4: Continuing our Athletics unit with a focus on long jump and triple jump, learning correct take-off and landing techniques to maximize distance.
• Grade 5/6: Advancing in Athletics by focusing on high jump, developing proper technique and confidence to clear greater heights.

Sports Update

This week, our swimmers are competing in the Hobsons Bay Division Swimming Carnival, representing Willy Primary at the next level of competition. These students have already achieved so much, performing exceptionally well at the District Carnival to earn their place in this event. They have trained hard, shown great determination, and are ready to put their skills to the test against strong competition. We know they will give it their all in the pool, and no matter the results, they should be extremely proud of their efforts. Best of luck to all our swimmers—go Willy Primary!

Warm Regards,

Paddy Gallivan (Physical Education)

Visual Arts

Over the next few lessons, we will continue to celebrate the unique Yayoi Kusama style. This week, all classes will begin looking at how we can create 3D art using Kusama’s sculptures as inspiration.

The Grade Prep’s have completed their dot flowers and have demonstrated amazing cutting skills. These artworks are displayed in the office foyer if you would like to stop by and take a closer look. This week we are starting to create our mini Yayoi Kusama figures. Stay tuned for pictures of the work in progress, they are just adorable and will take a couple of lessons to complete. 

The Grade 1/2’s spent last lesson experimenting with various tools and mediums to create dotted background papers ready to use for this week’s lesson. They will be creating extra large 3D dotted flowers using a variety of stencils.

The Grade 3/4’s had a master class lesson on how to take photos of their work and edit them. These photos have been added to their Google Classroom ready for everyone to enjoy. This will be an important assessment tool used for mid-year reports. The students will then move onto creating some 3D flowers in vases where they will continue to use Kusama as their inspiration. 

The Grade 5/6’s also took photos of their work and edited them. These are up on their Google Classroom ready for midyear assessments. The 5/6’s have moved onto creating 3D pumpkins in a couple of different ways and I’m so impressed with their skill and patience. 

***Just a reminder to bring in your Art smocks. Please hand them into your classroom teacher for storage. I recommend an old, oversized t-shirt or shirt with your child’s name on it. 

The Grade 5/6 volunteers continue to work on their entries for the Hobsons Bay 5x7 Art Competition. We have met Monday and Tuesday lunchtimes for a few weeks now and their pieces are coming along nicely. We will continue to work on these during lunchtimes until they are complete and ready to be collected by the Hobsons Bay Art Society on Monday March the 24th. Not long to go now before I must make the difficult choice for the final 24 spots!!! The chosen artworks will be the ones that best represent the theme for this year ‘Patterns’.

Warm Regards,

Marcia Evans (Visual Art)

LOTE (French)

Je Parle Francais A WILLY

Year 1s

They have been diligently learning to write a few basic short sentences to talk about themselves as well as practising the letter to sound patterns. Supported with a lot of interactions and practices with different partners every time, students are now expanding onto ‘mon animal préféré est …’ to be able to speak and write about their favourite animal. This will be supported by a ‘Boule et Bill’ French cartoon and a song title ‘Je Suis Moi’ (I am me) in the next fortnight.

Year 2s

Students have been actively working with partners to practise sentences about themselves. To further extend on the topic, we have just started the unit on ‘Les Parties Du Corps’ (The parts of the body) which, in a fun way, presents the students with how to refer to their own body in French. With a song and game in the next two weeks, they will begin to assimilate the relevant vocabulary to then be able to play ‘Jacques a Dit’ (Simon says) in French to incorporate the French language into their own play time.

Year 3/4s

They are working on their self-presentation piece to be able to talk about their name, class, age, place of residence and nationality. It has been a lot of fun for them to perform for the class using a prop of choice. In the next fortnight, the focus will narrow down to their classroom environment to develop verbal expression and space identification in the target language with the ‘Dans ma classe, il y a…’ activity.

Year 5/6s 

Students have began exploring grammatical aspects of French sentences by identifying adjectives to describe personal traits and the two conjugated forms of the verb ‘to be’: ‘Je suis’ (I am) vs. ‘tu es’ (you are). They are working with multiple partners to practise verbally their sentence making skills to talk about themselves and to talk to someone dear about them. In the next fortnight, they will continue making sentences and writing them following grammatical rules, sentence structures and word gender selection. As a bonus, year 5/6s have also now started a French singing contest which will see the team that puts the most heart and soul into it score extra bonus points each week – we call it our ‘Chantons Ensemble’ (‘Let’s Sing Together’) moment during each class. Music is indeed a great medium for language learning which is getting the kids excited.

Madame CRICRI