Specialist Classes-Term 4
Music
During this term students will be learning about……
Prep students will continue to develop their musical skills through the topics of ‘The Jungle’ and ‘The Sea’ and will experience using percussion instruments, scarves, the parachute and rhythmic ribbons to accompany music.
Year 1 – students will explore creating and using body percussion to accompany songs. They will also experience music and dance from different countries and will use scarves, ribbons and the parachute in listening and movement-based activities.
Year 2 – Students will be creating and performing soundscapes and will develop their improvisation skills. They will also experience music and dance from different countries.
Year 3 - students will be challenged to develop their singing skills by learning and performing a variety of rounds and canons. They will also compose their own music using the pentatonic scale and will be learning about the Instruments in an Orchestra.
Year 4 - students will be learning how to play in a drum circle and to perform African style music. They will develop their skills in playing the djembe and observe and discuss performances by a number of drum ensembles.
Year 5 – students will experience playing the guitar. They will be learning to play chords and riffs to accompany a variety of songs in whole class music making. They will also write and perform a piece of rap music.
Year 6 - students will further develop their individual skills in instrumental playing using either guitar/keyboard/ukulele or marimba and will use their knowledge to play and perform various popular songs. They will also choose an individua/small group music project to work on and will present their work to the class.
Performing Arts
To start the term, all classes spent the week learning and viewing multicultural dances and performing arts from all around the world. We enjoyed the Chinese Lion Dance, a Māori Haka, watched an Aboriginal welcome ceremony and dances from other countries and cultures. Students looked at similarities and differences between the cultures and costumes of different countries.
For the rest of the term,
Preps are learning how to create scene and voices using wooden toys and the words and actions to nursery rhymes.
Year 1 students are exploring improvisation, making superhero masks and how mime and movement can tell a story.
Year 2 students make puppets from newspapers and are exploring fairy tales and how to extend our comfort zone in improvised situations.
Year 3 are completing a unit of reader’s theatre where they prepare, practise and perform a play to the class and then finish the term looking at how literacy enhances drama.
Year 4are completing a unit of reader’s theatre where they prepare, practise and perform a play to the class and then finish the term exploring puppetry and masks on stage.
Year 5 students are learning the features of a script and experimenting with writing their own drama, then move onto exploring how mime and movement can enhance a story on stage.
Year 6 students will begin writing a script of their own creation to practise and perform to their class then move on to exploring digital drama and how ICT can enhance performances.
It’s going to be an awesome term in Performing Arts!
STEM
This term our students will engage in a range of hands on tasks, problem solving challenges and research projects.
Prep – Exploring senses (hearing and smell), experimenting with different shapes and objects. Students will also engage with push and pull forces and design and build an object to push or pull. Later in the term students will explore living things and life cycles.
Year 1- Earth & Space Science is our focus this term looking at weather patterns, seasons, migration and how we use earth’s resources. Students will explore differences in weather and seasons across the world and how these changes impact animal migration.
Year 2 – Biological Science is our focus this term exploring living things on earth, their habitats and comparing similarities and differences. Students will explore animal classifications and how their features help them survive. Later in the term they will discover plant life cycles by conducting their own growing experiment.
Year 3 – Earth & Space Science is our focus exploring where earth fits within our solar system and the features of our planet compared with other planets. Students will use technology to mimic the Mars Rover and experiment with being in control of moon landings. Students will also identify causes of erosion to the earths surface through a range of hands on activities.
Year 4 – Biological Science is our focus this term looking at how living things are connected in a web. Students will explore photosynthesis and plant growth by conducting growing experiments and recording their observations. Students will also identify life cycles of different living organisms.
Grade 5 – Earth & Space Science is the focus with students engaging in a hands on project modelling the planets in our solar system. Students will research and present
their findings in an expo to other classes (not open to parents). Students will also explore moon phases.
Year 6 – Students will have a focus on Biological Science looking at how animals adapt to survive and creating research projects around their chosen animal. Students will also look at how living things are affected by their physical environment by conducting mould testing, PH Acidity testing and using household items to compare PH
Mandarin
It's wonderful to see our students using Mandarin outside the classroom, from greeting others based on the time of day to singing children’s rhymes at home. Feedback from families reminds us how valued our language program is within the school community. This term, we will continue to build speaking skills, expand vocabulary, learn Chinese characters, and explore cultural aspects. Each year level will focus on specific units of work:
Prep
· Focus: Basic colours and an introduction to the Chinese writing system.
· Activities: Using a writing grid to practice handwriting numbers in Mandarin (characters and Pinyin).
Year 1
· Focus: Revisiting numbers 0-10 and learning to count to 20.
· Activities: Learning four basic characters (日, 月, 山, 水) through the nursery rhyme Mountains and Water and identifying these characters in compound forms.
Year 2
· Focus: Basic family words and expressing likes and dislikes.
· Activities: Singing the Mandarin version of Baby Shark, describing preferences using simple sentences, and substituting "I" with other subjects like family members or pets.
Year 3
· Focus: Expanding food vocabulary and practicing conversational skills.
· Activities: Practicing scripted dialogues using "I like" and "I don’t like" phrases. Exploring traditional Chinese architecture and garden elements through the Blue and White China unit.
Year 4
· Focus: School items and simple directions.
· Activities: Wrapping up the Gold Rush unit with a field trip to the Chinese Museum, learning names of school items, and practicing directions through an “I have, who has” speaking game.
Year 5
· Focus: Sports and hobbies vocabulary.
· Activities: Engaging in the “I like, who likes” game, learning vocabulary through songs, and constructing sentences about personal and family preferences.
Year 6
· Focus: Self-introduction and character recognition.
· Activities: Exploring the meanings behind their Chinese names, revisiting past content, and preparing a mini speech about themselves. Self-introductions will be published in their Year 6 Mandarin scrapbook page.
We look forward to another term of growth, learning, and cultural discovery with our students
Art
Preps will start the term creating a mixed media monster picture. They will learn about the resist technique where oil pastel and water colour paint don’t mix and then add paper details for a face. They will look at the artist Alexander Calder to create an abstract line drawing and learn about warm and cool colours. Students will create rainbow collages after reading the book How the Crayons Saved the Rainbow.
Years 1 & 2students will learn about the resist technique by painting water colour over oil pastel in a bird picture after listening to the story I Am Not A Bird. They will be introduced to the artist Alexander Calder to create an abstract line drawing and learn about complimentary colours when drawing lava lamps. Students will learn about perspective drawing while completing a step-by-step mountain landscape.
Years 3 & 4 students will learn about perspective drawing in a step-by-step city picture. They will create a sculpture of a flower using Magiclay and wire inspired by the artworks of Yayoi Kusama. Students will be exploring textiles and the ways they can be used to create artworks. They will design and then create, a stitched artwork using wool and hessian. Using water colour pencils students will draw food pictures.
Years 5 & 6 students will be exploring textiles and the ways they can be used to create artworks. They will create a stitched artwork using wool and hessian. Using Magiclay, students will design and sculpture dragon eyes and learn about complimentary colours when designing and drawing lava lamps. Exploring how water colour pencils work, students will draw food pictures.
Digitech
Prep, 1 and 2: Students will be learning how to use google maps to find different locations such as Hillsmeade Primary and different landmarks around the world. Students were introduced to how to research using a child-friendly search engine called ‘ Kiddle’.
Further into the term, we will be learning how to code and the importance of problem solving using technology, to do this we will be using an app called “SpriteBox”