Primary Specialists
Visual Art
Wow! We have come to our final newsletter for Term 1 and students across Foundation to Year 6 have been working hard to finalise their term’s pieces focusing learning on the Trans Theme ‘How we Express Ourselves’. This unit of Inquiry looked at the way Indigenous people have a deep and intrinsic connection with their land; the flora and fauna around them and seen extensively in the artwork they produce.
Over the term Foundation students focused on producing a floral piece created with aboriginal symbols. They learnt about the elements shape, line and colour as well as exploring materials such as warm coloured watercolours and acrylic paints to produce their layered piece.
Students in Years 1 and 2 used their prior knowledge of the Art elements including colour, shape and line to produce interpretations of Aboriginal X-ray drawings. This work is influenced by the X-ray painting technique that is most used in Aboriginal bark painting.
Year 3 students have almost completed their ‘Bush Medicine’ artworks influenced by the work of Indigenous artist Rosemary Petyarre whose work depicts the land and its abundance of ‘bush tucker’ species, medicine plants and native fauna. Through making, viewing and analysing rosemary’s work students have developed their knowledge, skill set and understanding of their art and the processes that an artist undertakes to complete art.
In Years 4 and 5 students have reflected on the terms work they completed, based on Australian geographical landscape features including, ‘Uluru’ and ‘The Bungle Ranges’. Most students have completed their work which used oil pastel on black paper and finished off with Aboriginal style dot detail applied with Posca pens.
Years 6 students reflected on their work, based on Bunjil, the creator and ancestral being to the Aboriginal peoples of Victoria. Bungil is often depicted as a wedge-tailed eagle. Most students have completed their work comprising of using oil pastel applied onto a black paper background and finished off with Aboriginal style dot detail and symbols which were applied with Posca pens.
Spanish
As always, our Spanish program focuses on understanding other worlds and making connections among cultures, for which we have loved ending this Term 1 with a big celebration of diversity during Harmony Day.
Our Prep students are consolidating their colours in Spanish while learning new vocabulary with short bilingual animations so they can start to understand and express short sentences such as "Tres gatos amarillos".
Years 1 and 2 students have been learning a song to ask or inform about the weather in Spanish and used this vocabulary to decorate plates by using the structure "Cuando _____, me siento ______" (When it is _______, I feel ______). This way they make a connection with their previous learning about emotions.
Students in Years 3 and 4 have already started to work on their final projects to showcase their Spanish learning. They have been given different options: some are creating a comic strip about a trip, some others are making a presentation their town, drawing and labelling an alien city, working on an interactive map or designing their own game in Spanish.
Our senior students on Years 5 and 6 are continuing with their final project, most of them have already finished their scripts in Spanish, some have prepared props and started rehearsing. Soon they will start recording their short movies.
Physical Education
In P.E we have rounded off the term with great success.
Throughout the last 2 weeks of the term we have had AFL Victoria attend and run footy clinics with all year levels to coincide with the start of the football season. All students enthusiastically participated and it seems we have a few future Western Bulldogs players in the making (Sorry Mr Nicolaides).
On Tuesday the 28th April, 4 students from our Primary School represented our school with pride in the annual Western Metropolitan Regional Swimming tournament. This swimming event was held at Kardinia Aquatic Centre in Geelong, with students from government, catholic and independent schools competing.
A massive congratulations goes to the following students from our school for reaching the Regional swimming competition:
-Cyla Tuiatua- 6B
-Lincoln Norgate- 6B
-Marcus Ng- 6B
-Aser Dawood- 5B
We had some fantastic results from this swimming tournament with Aser Dawood placing 1st in the backstroke finals and 3rd in the butterfly finals. Aser will now progress to the State finals to compete in Backstroke, which is a phenomenal achievement!
We also had our amazing Mixed Medley relay team consisting of Cyla, Lincoln, Marcus and Aser finish 3rd place in their race to achieve a bronze medal! The relay team should all be extremely proud of their achievements in this race and they were leading the relay race at one stage as well.
Congratulations to the Saltwater Swim Team, keep up the hard work!
We wish everyone a safe and happy easter break.
Media Art with Mr Howarth
In Media, students are taking skills learned in prior lessons and applying them to new tasks. In particular, we have been focusing on:
Preps: Students are continuing to use media to answer inquiring questions. Using “Ask The Storybots” as a mentor text, students have been inquiring into different systems, such as recycling plants, what happens when we flush, and how chocolate is made.
Year One: After a few weeks of examining Dreamtime Stories, student have explored stories from other cultures and how they have shaped the world we live in today. This has included the story of the Chinese Zodiac and its connection to Lunar New Year, and the Greek and Roman Gods, with their connection to the planets, Valentine’s Day and brands like Nike.
Year Two: The Year Two students have completed their print ads, taking photos of tomato cans, creating a slogan, selecting a fancy font, and putting it all together. Next, they will create radio ads for the same product.
Year Three: Students have been planning and shooting their own still-image narratives, based on an animated short about falling asleep in class. These innovations on a text allow the students to utilise the skills they have learned earlier in term and communicate stories in new ways.
Year Four: In Year Four, we are analysing the children’s TV show, Thalu. Students have been using their critical thinking skills to identify character traits and motivations, symbols and metaphors, and narrative conflicts.
Year Five: The Year Five students are wrapping up their short films and will now be progressing to editing their pieces in order to present to the rest of the class.
Year Six: Following our final line of inquiry, “The meaning of artifacts, heirlooms and traditions”, students are sharing family recipes that hold significance to them. Together, we will be creating a class recipe book.
Music
In music all year levels spent time further exploring our new instruments and applying knowledge and skills we have gained so far this year. Collaboration in groups large and small has been a focus with many groups writing or drawing the notes they intend to play. Students in year P-2 focused mainly on untuned percussion instruments (shakers, claves, guiro etc) while the older students have been working on combined drum and xylopne ensembles.
DANCE
Term one has finished off with great energy from all the Prep classes coming in and soaking up every minute of dance! They have been working on identifying different parts of the body in our warm ups and stretches, and through this have gained more awareness of their right and left sides also. We have been working on levels, different directions, range of movement, body control and also the way we apply ourselves to the tasks set out. This is described through the examples of doing everything in capital letters, meaning through big and strong actions to help maximise range, power, and full completion of combinations and steps.
Discussions of examples mentioned and given in classes throughout the term, have helped prompt critical and forward thinking, accountability, decision making and ownership of actions, as well as self awareness. Students have been eager to learn and have applied themselves accordingly, and we look forward to more fun classes ahead.
Have a safe and Happy Easter everyone and see you in Term Two! :)