Physical Education

In Physical Education, our students have been diligently developing their basketball dribbling skills. Each week, we've observed noticeable improvements in their technique, confidence, and understanding of the game's fundamentals. Emphasis has been placed on playing the right way—focusing on control, teamwork, and fair play. It's been rewarding to see students apply these principles during practice games, demonstrating both skill and sportsmanship.

Looking ahead, we're excited to announce the commencement of our Athletics Carnival for Grades 3 and 4 in Week 4. The events are scheduled for Tuesday, 13th May, and Thursday, 15th May, at the Victoria University Wyndham Sporting Complex.

Our students have been diligently preparing since the start of the school year, and we are confident they will showcase their best efforts.

Best of luck to all participants!

¡Hola, Saltwater families!

We’re pleased to show you some highlights from our recent Spanish lessons. Students have been learning with creativity, enthusiasm, and cultural exploration!

Our Preps have been learning about opposites, focusing on rápido (fast) and lento (slow). They watched The Hare and the Tortoise story in Spanish, which helped them understand the concept in an engaging way. Afterward, they enjoyed a fun coloring activity to reinforce their learning. Preps have also been introduced to the concept of sharing, using Spanish words and phrases to practice taking turns and being kind.

Year 1 and 2 students in Years have continued learning about opposites, and have also been introduced to important social values such as equity (la equidad) and non-discrimination (la no discriminación). These discussions helped them connect language with how we treat each other in our community.

Years 3 and 4 students in Years 3 and 4 explored opposites in more depth and also celebrated Cinco de Mayo—a Mexican holiday that honors the Battle of Puebla. They learned about the history of the celebration and participated in related cultural activities, music, and art.

Years 5 and 6 students have expanded their understanding of opposites using more advanced vocabulary. They also celebrated Cinco de Mayo by exploring Mexican traditions and reflecting on the themes of resilience and community pride through various engaging activities.

It’s been great to see everyone learning and having fun—¡Buen trabajo!

Gracias,The Spanish TeamSaltwater P-9 College.

Mandarin with Miss Xiong and Miss Qiao

We are excited to share the wonderful learning that has been happening across all year levels in our Mandarin classes!

Prep students have been joyfully exploring how to express family members using gestures. Through creative activities such as drawing their own family portraits, singing engaging family-themed songs, and completing fun colouring sheets, they are building both their understanding and enjoyment of the Chinese language in a meaningful way.

Year 1–2 students have been learning about the rainbow colours. They have enthusiastically participated in colour-by-number activities, which helped them connect Chinese numbers with colours. A variety of “find the colour” games have also kept them actively engaged and excited during Mandarin lessons.

Year 3–4 students are also focusing on family members, but with a deeper emphasis on Chinese character writing. They have been practising pinyin, the four tones, and stroke order to improve their reading and writing skills while continuing to expand their vocabulary.

Year 5–6 students are currently learning about pets. They have completed Chinese character tracing sheets and comprehension worksheets, helping them strengthen their memory of key Chinese characters. They have also begun constructing simple sentences, applying what they’ve learned to express ideas more clearly in Mandarin.

It’s been a delight seeing students grow in their confidence and enthusiasm for Mandarin. We look forward to continuing this language journey together!

Prep Art

What a fantastic last two weeks. In Week 3, our Prep students used their prior knowledge to create a special person’s artwork for Mother’s Day. In Week 4, students continued to learn about primary colours and inquired into the artist: Piet Mondrian who is a Dutch artist best known for his abstract paintings. He often used primary colours – red yellow and blue. Our Prep students had fun replicating a piece of his work.

Prep Art Project: Sock & Material Donations

We're excited to align our Art curriculum with the Prep team's second unit of inquiry,

exploring how emotions, attitudes, and beliefs influence the way we act. In this spirit, our Prep students will be embarking on a creative project during Art specialist classes—crafting caterpillars using an assortment of materials to connect texture with emotions.

We're reaching out to request donations. If you have any spare, clean long socks (without holes) that your child no longer needs, we'd appreciate one sock per child to make this project come to life. Additionally, if you have any recycled materials suitable for stuffing these socks to help students understand textures better—such as plastic bottle caps, cotton wool balls, newspapers, rubber bands, beads, or soft plastics like clean bread bags or chip packets—they would be perfect for our project. Please note that if you don't have these items, there's no need to purchase them. We'll collectively utilise the resources we receive.

Please send your donations to your classroom teachers by the 23rd of May. Your contributions will be shared among the class and utilised in the upcoming weeks.

Thank you sincerely for your invaluable help and support.

Warm regards,

Miss Crane

Grade 1&2 Art

Yet another spectacular 2 weeks in Art!

Our talented year 1and 2 students utilised art in a meaningful way for a very special Person/Mum! In week 3 they created glittery cards, patterned frames, and colourful bouquets to celebrate Mother's Day! I was very impressed with the dedication, and uniqueness of each student's art work- a gift made from love, indeed!

In week 4 students built on their knowledge of the colour wheel, by using complimentary colours. They practised directed drawing to create a bright and delicious looking 'melon,' with oil pastels.

The images were life-like and included techniques such as smudging and shading to create texture. The students executed these skills well, and based their contrasting art work on artist's like Claude Monet and Henri Matisse. Student's learned that complimentary colours are pairs of colours opposite each other on the colour wheel, to create vibrant and interesting effects. Thank you, to all my wonderful artists,

lots of love and gratitude for your efforts and devotion to ART! Ms Ancona

Grade 5 & 6 Art

This week in Visual Arts, Grade 5 and 6 students have been re-acquainting themselves with watercolour paints. They’ve been refreshing their knowledge of familiar techniques and exploring some new ones, creating a sample page to experiment and build confidence with the medium.

Grade 3 & 4 ART

Students have explored Perspective – a fundamental concept in drawing that helps artists create the illusion of depth and distance.

We began by defining perspective to represent three-dimensional objects on a flat surface, making them appear more realistic. Students examined how objects look smaller as they recede into the distance and practiced identifying vanishing points and horizon lines in various artworks.

To put this knowledge into action, students completed a one-point perspective drawing in their art journals. Using rulers and lead pencils, they carefully sketched doors, focusing on accuracy and proportion. Once complete, they added vibrant colours to bring their drawings to life.

Building on these new skills, students participated in a special Mother’s Day art activity. They applied their understanding of perspective to draw and shade hearts, giving their work a sense of depth and creativity. These beautiful heart drawings were then transformed into thoughtful Mother’s Day cards, each featuring heartfelt, handwritten messages to show their appreciation.

Music

Dear Parents and Students,

Here is the latest from Primary Music!

Music Learning Through the Kodály Method

At Saltwater P-9 College, we embrace the Kodály method to create an engaging and joyful music learning experience. This approach helps students develop strong musical foundations through singing, movement, and rhythm-based activities. These skills are then applied using a range of tuned percussion instruments (such as xylophones and glockenspiels) and untuned percussion (like drums, shakers, and tambourines). This hands-on learning allows students to explore musical elements such as beat, rhythm, and pitch in creative and meaningful ways.

What’s Happening Across the School?

Prep students have been singing playful songs such as BINGO and Tingalayo. They are also learning how to hold percussion instruments in both ready and resting positions, while exploring the different sounds and techniques used to play them.

Grade 1 students are expanding their repertoire of simple songs and accompanying them with untuned percussion and body percussion to develop rhythmic confidence.

Grade 2 students are rehearsing Can You Dig That Crazy Gibberish and have begun learning Funga Alafia, continuing to build their rhythmic and ensemble skills.

Grade 3 students have been exploring percussion through group performance and have now begun learning a new call-and-response song, Obwisana.

Grade 4 students are learning Che Che Koolay, a vibrant piece from Ghana. They have also started composing and rehearsing their own small-group percussion performances.

Grades 5 and 6 are focused on Sansa Kroma, another traditional Ghanaian song. They are working collaboratively in small groups to create and refine percussion ensemble performances.

A strong focus of our music program this year is on the Kodály method, which supports students’ musical development in a structured yet playful way.

Warm regards,

Stephen Saxton

The Music Department

DANCE

The Year 6 students have recently begun their dance journey over the last couple of weeks, embracing the new challenges and tasks along the way. Through dance we are currently learning valuable skills such as perception, change of directions, attention to detail, ownership of actions, commitment and consistency, and adapting to immediate changes in instructions. These exercises and tasks are designed to create insight, and open the mind to possible ways they can all be used in every day life in the outside world. The Year 6 students are off to a great start and we look forward to what’s ahead!

VSSS...(Dance)

This week Saltwater College hosted their second ever Victorian State School Spectacular combined schools hub rehearsal. On Tuesday the creative team of choreographers and organisers came back to our school to choreograph and add on to the routines used for this years Showcase in September. With 5 other schools on sight along with our students also, we had a combined group of up to 100 students dancing their hearts out all day in the gym and dance studio. The atmosphere was amazing with everyone focused and working so hard for the big show ahead at John Cain Arena. Our students represented our school and community on the highest level and we are so proud of each and every one of them!

Wakakirri...(Dance)

Our dance extension students have taken on an extra rehearsal per week going into this term as time is ticking by fast with so much to get done. The teamwork in this huge group is amazing and something to be seen! Definitely a teachers dream to work with such a talented, supportive, focussed and enthusiastic group of students. With so much yet to go we don’t want to give away too much just yet, but know they are definitely setting the bar high and stepping it up to another level this year! Watch this space!

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