Performing Arts 

Performing Arts News

What a wonderful, jam packed term we have had in Performing Arts! It has been lovely to get to know each student and see their amazing creativity in action. During the year students will have the opportunity to have a go at Drama and Dance but our focus this term has been on Music. At the end of every lesson I give a ‘Star of Performing Arts’ to somebody in the class and have listed our stars below for term one. Everybody has worked extremely hard and these students have been particular standouts. 

Foundation students have had a ball learning songs and doing drama activities about farm animals. They have even had the opportunity to use the xylophones. They have been listening and responding to different music and have been focusing on identifying steady beats. 

Grade Ones have learned a song from Ghana and have been able to sing both the African and English verses with accompanying movements. They have also added shakers, hand cymbals and xylophones. We have started looking at composing our own music using animal sounds whilst exploring dynamics.  We have also focussed on steady beats and will be learning about rhythm and how to read this next term.

Grade Two have had a wonderful time singing the very popular Charlie Over the Ocean song. This is also a game that we have enjoyed playing which gives students the opportunity to sing individually in front of the class. After learning the song we also added drums, woodblock, triangle and xylophones. Another favourite activity for the grade twos has been creating their own composition on the xylophones. They have chosen an emotion to base this on and have created their own notation to record the notes they have used. 

Grade three have learned the Moroccan song A Ram Sam Sam and have added untuned percussion (tambourine, triangles and drums) and tuned percussion (xylophone and glockenspiel). They have started looking at body percussion and have demonstrated their knowledge of the instruments families in the orchestra. 

After some initial scepticism, Grade four have surprised themselves with their enjoyment of the Arabic folk song Tafta Hindi. They were able to read the rhythm notation in order to play along using tambourine, finger cymbals, drums and glockenspiels. They have dabbled in improvisation using xylophones and have listened and responded to Mozart and the Dr Who theme (complete with villains!). They have enjoyed demonstrating their knowledge of the instrument families using Kahoot! 

Both Grade Five and Six start each class with the extremely popular ‘Bop or Flop’ where they are asked to listen to a song and decide whether they think it’s good or bad. Once decided, they discuss their thoughts with students who agree and use music terminology to express their feelings to the opposing side. They have had wonderful, rich discussions about Taylor Swift, Baker Boy and Bob Marley so far this year and I am looking forward to seeing their reactions to the music to come! 

They have also had the opportunity to use xylophones and keyboards to improvise and later compose and record their own music using rhythmic notation. They have used Blooket to test their knowledge of the orchestral instrument families. Both year levels have also briefly explored some drama games and have broken out the Boomwhackers for an end of term Peaches and Lion King play along. 

For their year level songs, Grade Five sang and played along to the Spanish song Cheki Morena. They used maracas and xylophones and then explored syncopated rhythms with castanets and tambourines.  Grade Six loved singing Lil’ Liza Jane and playing along with triangles, tambourines, guiros, xylophones and glockenspiels. 

As we progress through the year and start doing more drama activities, I am hoping we may be able to get some donations of props such as hats, glasses and jackets or fairytale type costumes to help us create characters in class. If you have something that you think may be useful, please feel free to email me at aingles@shcolac.catholic.edu.au 

I would sincerely like to thank all Sacred Heart students for such a warm welcome as their Performing Arts teacher. It is such a joy to witness these wonderful young people having fun learning and showing their creativity! 

Performing Arts - Alana Ingles