Specialist Team News

Visual Art

Over the next few weeks, all classes will be celebrating the unique art style of Frida Kahlo. Each year level will be creating their own self-portraits, bringing our sketches to life in various fun and creative ways.

Grade Prep’s have completed their Frida Kahlo headdresses, and they look amazing. Some of these will be on display in the office shortly. Preps will begin their Frida Portraits next week. We also made some special art pieces for Mother’s day using forks and paint to print gorgeous flowers.

Grade 1/2’s completed their sketches of their self-portraits and have begun adding oil pastel on black paper to make them come to life. The contrast of the oil pastel colours on the black paper are very effective.

Grade 3/4’s have done an amazing job at sketching their self-portraits. They have begun using water colour pencils to blend colours and add detail to these sketches. The next step will be to create a bold and interesting background for their art pieces. I can’t wait to see the finished artwork!

The Grade 5/6’s have completed their initial sketches of themselves and some have begun creating their monochromatic self-portraits using coloured paper. All students will choose a colour scheme where they must use shades of one colour to create the fine details of their self-portrait. The result should be very interesting and quite different to anything we have done.

Art Club 

Art Club is a new activity which has started this year. Various year levels will have a turn to volunteer each term. The schedule for 2025 will be as follows:

In Art Club, students made a variety of 3D, layered coloured flowers which were added to our oversized Frida Kahlo portrait. This is now up in the foyer of the office. 

5 x 7 Art Competition

Our art pieces are back, and I have displayed these in the office foyer. Well done to all the participants. I’ve yet to use the Atelier voucher and will keep you posted with what the school chooses.

Art smocks

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. 

Warm Regards,

Marcia Evans (Visual Art)

Performimg Arts

Preps

Students are learning about rhythyms, and how to read the musical notations for ta, ti-ti and za. Then creating their own animal composition with these rhythms and performing it to the grade.

Grade 1 

Students are reviewing musical notations and the names of the notes on the keyboard and xylophones. Applying these notes and rhythms from the African song Funga Alafia and playing together on the tuned instruments. Along with creating and performing their individual Character compositions to the grade. 

Grade 2

Students are reviewing the note names on the keyboard and xylophones and learning to find and read these notes on the treble clef staff. Playing along with an audio file as an ensemble.

Grade 3/4

Students are continuing on with Sea shanties. Learning to play the Wellerman on the marimba using two note chords and on the keyboard using three note chords. then playing together as an ensemble. Also, students are writing a Sea Shanty parody to the Wellerman tune and rhythyms.  We are looking forward to their creations as they share with their grade.

Grade 5/6

Students have been reviewing two and three note chords and playing these chords on the keyboard and marimba. Discovering that different scales and key signatures require sharps and flats in the chord. playing along with a song , keeping in time and changing chords accordingly. then performing as an ensemble. Quite a challenge.

Performing Art Ensembles

Choir  Wednesday 1:40pm 

Rehearsals are every week in the P/A with Lynne. Please remind your children about the importance of attending regularly. 

A number of children submitted design for this years T-shirt, most had familiar attributes, we have decided to create a mash up of those submitted. Congratulations to Mary B, Isabel P, Bella B, Mia C, Charlotte H and Eva N. Thank you for your contributions.

Marimba Band  Thursday 1:40pm

Rock Band Friday 1:40pm

Warm regards,

Faye Ferry & Lynne Georgiadis

Performing Arts Teachers   

LOTE (French)

Bonjour Mirabelle

We have been very fortunate this week to welcome Mirabelle to the French room:

‘Hello! I’m Mirabelle, a Year Ten student from Strathmore Secondary College who loves learning and all things French. In the fourth week of this term, I was lucky enough to complete my work experience at Williamstown Primary School. Throughout the week I shadowed Madame Cricri and helped students with their work. I learned so much about French culture, effective teaching techniques and fascinating facts from the sweetest Willy kids. This experience has been very enlightening and deepened my respect for such a beautiful profession. Thank you so much to everyone, this week has been unforgettable.’

Preps are moving full steam ahead with their grasp of the French alphabet. We played a listening game where they have to pick up the colour pencil or letter requested: ‘Je voudrais le crayon rouge / la letter ‘A’ (I would like the red pencil / the letter ‘A’). Mirabelle was astonished to see our youngest Willy Kids so able to identify the language easily in fluent spoken French. Big credit to our Preps on their wonderful work in the past 4 weeks – it is clearly working!

Year 1s have been working on ‘Le Facteur’ song in preparation to playing the Postman game. They can now fully identify the days of the week in French and have found a verbal rhythm to replicate the singing pattern of the game. 

Year 2s have worked well on identifying the four essential elements to build up a date in French (le jour/le numéro/le mois/l’année - day/number/month/year). This has now empowered them to be able to create fully written dates in French, independently.

Year 3/4s have completed their ‘De Fromelles A Melbourne’ friendship pages between France and Australia. They are moving forward by creating their own French calendar page for which they have to locate and record all the information across the room to be able to use their calendar independently on a weekly basis. 

Year 5/6s are happily working on the Notre-Dame inquiry as well as being presented with many authentic materials featuring Notre-Dame, from the cartoon ‘Le Bossu De Notre-Dame’, to the musical ‘Notre-Dame De Paris’, as well as aspects of its recent reconstruction such as the significance of the rooster at the very top of it… This ancient monument is for our Willy Kids an absolute gold mine of cultural and historical information that they are independently diving into on a fortnightly basis. It is allowing them to develop their autonomy as well as research and problem-solving skills.

Madame CRICRI