Performing Arts

Communicating with the Specialist Team

We look forward to partnering with you in 2022, and welcome your input:

Penelope Lang (Performing Arts) penelope.lang@education.vic.gov.au 

Wominjeka!

I can't quite believe it is Week 6 already! How did that happen? 

I have been so impressed with the resilience and flexibility demonstrated by our students over the last few weeks with this very unpredictable weather. Sunny one minute and torrential rain the next. I hope you have managed to keep safe and dry?

Our Thursday lunchtime Christmas choir is now well underway (open to all year levels). Last week we had almost 50 students attend. Nothing beats the joy of singing in a group. If your child has decided to stay in choir (they could have a one week trial) then can I ask that you provide a plastic display folder (with their name on) for their song sheets? 

Our walking excursion to Upwey town center to entertain the local community will be on Wednesday 14th December at a time to be confirmed. This is for our senior students. Our junior students will perform for our school community and hopefully the local Kindergarten. I will keep you posted. 

Our Instrumental concert, run by Groove Foundations, will be held in the school gym next TUESDAY 15th November starting at 3.45pm. Feel free to come along to watch and support our talented and brave singers and musicians. 

We have had three more weeks of learning and laughter.

Foundation:

The Foundation students have been busy finalising and rehearsing their 'cut and paste' percussion task. It was fantastic to watch them concentrating hard on keeping a steady beat whilst following a 'music' sheet AND changing instruments. Amazing multi-tasking in action. They asked lots of questions about my new pink music stand and were very excited to use it! We have continued to use 'Percussion Play-along' songs to re-enforce their beat keeping skills and they enjoyed dancing and playing percussion instruments to, "I'm on Top of the World" by Imagine Dragons.

Year 1/2:

The Year 1 students completed their four bar rythmic compositions (incorporating the repeat sign) and then partnered up with a 'beat buddy' to rehearse using rhythm sticks and body percussion. When performing for the class, one person played their rhythm whilst the 'beat buddy' kept a steady beat on the Djembe. Then the roles were swapped. It has been great to watch them adopt techniques such as asking their partner 'Are you ready?', using a music stand for their 'music' so as to free their hands for playing instruments and counting in using, "Get ready here we go" or "One, Two, Three Four". The Year 2 students had a refresher lesson on percussion instruments (not concussion instruments as someone suggested!) and explored the difference between tuned and untuned instruments. They have continued to warm up at the beginning of each lesson by moving to a body percussion song. These have included, "The Greatest Show" and 'Can't Stop the Feeling'. They are developing more 'ukulele' language such as 'finger, fret, string, strum, pluck' and have begun working in small groups to write and perform their own version of, 'Row, Row, Row Your Boat' using the C Chord.

Year 3/4:

The Year 3/4 students have been continuing to develop their skill and increase their confidence on the ukulele. We watched a funny video about 'Four chord songs" and recapped the ukulele string names and numbers. They worked together to learn and recall the different parts of the ukulele including head, body, neck, nut, bridge and sound hole. They are improving their beat keeping skills and ability to count 'inside their heads' when strumming so we can all stop at the same time. They have now learnt the C, F and Am chords and we are working on progressing through those chords smoothly when playing the song, "Thunder" by Imagine Dragons. 

Year 5/6:

We have had a busy couple of weeks continuing to learn new skills on the ukulele. Our fingertips are certainly getting a little tougher each week. We have worked on strumming consistently over the sound hole and using correct terminology when finding chord positions on the ukulele (finger, fret, string). All of our ukuleles have coloured dots on them to help with correct finger positions (if needed). I had a lot of fun deliberately putting the ukuleles out of tune (much to the student's shock!) and then teaching them how to use an electronic tuner to re-tune them. I was amazed at how quickly the students mastered this skill. We played the song, "Thunder" in unison and used the chords C, F and Am.