Specialists

Visual Arts

What a wonderful start to the year! Students have returned with ‘ZESTY’ attitudes and are ready to get to work in the Visual Arts. It has been such a pleasure seeing all of our students’ smiling faces and their excitement to be back in the Visual Arts. Welcome to all of our new students’ starting at Gilgai Plains Primary School this year. I know that you will have a wonderful educational journey and look forward to seeing you grow and develop in The Arts throughout the year. 

What is happening in the Visual Arts…

Foundation

Artist Focus: Leonardo Da Vinci

We had some interesting responses to our Art activity, ‘Where in the world would you take Mona Lisa, to make her smile?’

Some suggestions were…

1. Mc Donald’s
2. My soccer game
3. The Louvre to see her painting.

Amazing responses!

Year 1 and 2

Artist Focus: Claude Monet

Students will be learning about brush techniques and will create a watercolor drawing based on the beautiful works of Claude Monet. 

Year 3 and 4

Artist Focus: Vincent Van Gogh

Students’ will explore Van Gogh’s famous masterpieces- ‘Starry Night’ and ‘Sunflowers’.

Students’ will use the same technique as Van Gogh and create movement in their piece. They will finish their unit by recreating a work by Van Gogh with acrylic paint on canvas.

Year 5 and 6

Artist Focus: Pablo Picasso

Students will study Picasso’s famous ‘Weeping Woman’. They will also learn about the different artistic periods in Picasso’s life with a focus on Cubism. They will create Picasso Portraits with a pastel medium.

Innovation and Design

We are really excited to introduce our brand new Specialist subject - Innovation and Design! There are three of us who will be teaching this across the whole school:

Ms Huntly	Ms Bennett	Ms Kirk

This term we will be looking at Digital Technologies and how to be safe when we are online. We have been learning about what the internet is and how we use it to access information, play games and listen to or watch media. 

We encourage students to share with you at home what they have been learning about staying safe online as we continue to build this knowledge throughout the term. 

Some of the important topics we have been discussing include:

• How the internet works
• What I can do online
• What information I can share online and with who
• Who can see what I am doing online
• The importance of a strong password or passphrase
• How devices communicate (Binary coding - Year 5/6)

Through the term we will use Seesaw at different times to showcase what we are learning in the classroom. Here are some photos of learning from the term so far:

We look forward to sharing more with you throughout the year!

Science

Happy new year families! We welcome all our students for another exciting year in Science! It was lovely to see the students’ zest during our first sessions, especially the little preppies!

Foundation - Year 2

Seasons : This month the students are learning about the seasons. We started off with Summer, the first season of the year and will continue to focus on the various characteristics of each season. such as temperature during the season, kind of clothes we wear and activities we do during each season. Students discuss, share ideas and communicate their thinking with their teachers and peers during these sessions. They also make predictions and pose questions which helps enhance their skills. While the foundation year students show their understanding of the seasons through pictures, the year 1 students are encouraged to name each object/activity they draw. The year 2 students, on the other hand, are urged to write a paragraph on the picture they draw to enhance their writing skills. We will continue to learn about other seasons over the next few weeks.

Year 3 and 4

Weathering and erosion. We started with discussions and predictions - what is weathering? We viewed various videos to learn more about weathering and deepened our discussions to define, describe the causes and provide examples of weathering. Students will continue to work together to ask deeper questions, predict, research and report their findings about the impact of weathering on the land and living organisms. 

Then, students will apply new knowledge and skills to explore erosion. Students will create labelled diagrams to enhance their understanding. Over the next few weeks we will be learning more about erosion and deposition and how it is important for Earth and human life.

Year 5 and 6

Natural disasters: This month, the year 5/6 will focus on learning about floods and bushfires. So far, students have shared their current understanding about floods, including working together to pose questions, research and present their findings.

Over the next weeks students will be learning more about the fire ratings, what the impacts of floods and bushfires are and how we can prepare ourselves if we find ourselves in such a situation.

Physical Education

Foundation

The foundation children have been learning about the rules of the gym and have had opportunities to play with some of the fantastic equipment we have in PE. For the remainder of the term we will be focusing on the Fundamental Motor Skills of ‘Run’ and ‘Catch’. We encourage families to continue refining these skills at home.

Year 1 and 2

The year 1 and 2 children have settled into the start of 2023. We have been learning about the Fundamental Motor Skill of ‘Overarm Throw’. The children have focused on the 6 steps required to complete the skill. For the remainder of the term we will be learning about the Fundamental Motor Skill of ‘Kicking’. We have encouraged children to continue practising this important skill at home.

Year 3 and 4

Term 1 is always an exciting time in PE with lots of new excited and smiling faces as we learn new skills and sports. 

We have started our term with the sport Basketball, where we will be learning the necessary skills of Dribbling and Shooting. We are excited to see the development of our students in these skills and watch them use the skills in a game situation. 

The Year 3 & 4 students also completed the Beep Test, we will be using their scores to observe their fitness levels throughout the year. We aim to help our students increase their fitness and give them strategies they can apply at home or school to improve. 

Later this term we will be focusing on the sport of Cricket, our students are excited and we have already heard conversations around the skills they want to learn. Our focus will be on Bowling, Batting and Strategies to use when playing in a match.  

It’s great to see our Year 3&4 students so excited about participating in sports and fitness. We encourage families to, in their spare time, practice at home to help extend/develop what we are learning at school. 

Year 5 and 6

There has been a lot going on in Sport at Gilgai Plains this term. Our Interschool Sport teams have been busy training for the upcoming games. Good luck to everyone that is participating and representing our school with pride. 

In PE our students have been focusing on developing the necessary skills needed for the sport of Basketball. Our lessons have helped strengthen students' ability to gather a move while dribbling, read the court and stay in control of the ball. Over the next few weeks we will be finishing Basketball and moving on to Cricket.

We have also completed our Term 1 Beep Test to identify where our current fitness level is. We will Re-Test each term to ensure the fitness and endurance level of each student is improving.

Students are encouraged to practice the skills learnt in PE at home, teach their siblings or family members and enjoy the new sports we are introducing. We have some exciting opportunities coming up in the near future and look forward to sharing those with you soon.