Visual Arts News

Dear Parents,

The learning has been action-packed this term due to media arts.Children have been making puppets,storyboarding,prop making,learning about different camera shots and angles in preparation for filming and telling their stories. Please see below what each year group has been learning so far.

Prep

Our Prep students stepped into the exciting world of digital animation on the carpet this week! They practised safe iPad handling and learnt our golden stop-motion chant: "Move a little, Hands away, Click!" Working in buddy pairs as puppeteers and shutter operators, the children captured up to 20 test frames of their paper characters moving across their handmade forest backgrounds, even learning how to scroll through their timeline to delete accidental hand photos.

                                              stopmotion  character puppets and setting.

Grade 1

Grade 1 pupils put their storyboard plans into motion as active production officially began for their fairytale animations! Working in structured five-member team roles (such as Director, Camera Operator, and Puppeteer), students taped iPads securely to stands to keep camera angles steady. They traced character cutouts to create fluid movement and successfully photographed incremental scene shifts frame-by-frame across their custom set backdrops.

                       Jack and the beanstalk- stop motion character puppet and setting.

Grade 2

Our Grade 2 pupils embraced digital photography this week to begin filming their Beauty and the Beast photo storybooks! They put their framing knowledge into action by purposefully taking wide shots of castle settings, medium shots of character interactions, and emotional close-ups. The children learnt how to tap iPad screens to auto-focus on character masks, controlled desk lighting to prevent dark shadows, and inserted their sequenced photos directly into Book Creator.

                                                            Beauty and the Beast Masks.

Grade 3

Grade 3 classrooms were buzzing with creative energy as student film crews recorded original 30-second television advertisements for their custom toy prototypes! Taking on crew roles as Directors, Camera Operators, Script Writers, Prop Makers, and Actors, pupils recorded four distinct storyboard scenes. Lead actors focused on projecting an energetic, persuasive "selling voice" while the rest of the crew maintained quiet set conditions to ensure crystal-clear audio capture.

Grade 4

Our Grade 4 students stepped in front of and behind the camera this week as filming commenced for their collaborative fairytale short movies! Pupils put technical camera choices into practice—using high angles to make characters look small and low angles to convey power. Student Directors guided actors through dialogue and staging, ensuring filming ran smoothly, cameras remained still, and scenes strictly matched their group storyboards.

Grade 5

Grade 5 filmmakers took on a unique storytelling challenge this week by filming short silent movies completely without spoken dialogue! Actors used exaggerated facial expressions, clear gestures, and deliberate body language to express emotions and plot twists. Camera Operators selected deliberate framing distances to highlight character reactions, while film crews managed lighting and quiet set environments to capture their performances crisply.

                                                           Initial concept storyboarding.

Grade 6

Our senior Grade 6 pupils showed great technical maturity and leadership during Week 3 as they filmed short movies designed to communicate important social messages like kindness, anti-bullying, and environmental care. Film crews operated within strict two-minute runtime limits, maintaining precise crew roles to keep cameras steady, control ambient sound, and review recorded footage on set to re-take scenes where needed.