Visual Arts

Year Prep

Students in Year Prep have been working on their pop art pieces. They have been developing their skills in collaging and creating collaged donuts. This week they have began the preparation for their final piece of artwork for the term. They are learning about printing and pattern making and will be creating their own textured paper which they will cut and collage to create their Peppa Pig pop art piece.

Year One

Students in Year One have been investigating Andy Warhol as their pop artist inspiration muse. They drew and painted the famous "Tomato Soup" can artwork to show appreciation of his work. This week they are working on recreating Andy Warhol's 'Flower series' artwork. They are experimenting with sponging and are using printing techniques to fill in flowers which they will cut and collage as the foreground to their final piece.

Year Two

Students in Year Two created a plan for their pop art final artwork. They were required to choose an onomatopoeia word that shows sound. Students had to think about the various layers , shapes and contrasting colours they would like to use in their 3 dimensional pop art piece. This week they began creating the benday dots by using bubble wrap and experimented with printing techniques. They will use this as one of the background layers for their final pop art piece.

Year Three

Students in Year Three created their plan for their comic book cover. They had to consider the foreground, middleground and background for their "Dogman' Comic book front page. students considered what theme and mood they wanted to create for their book cover and they had to choose the title, characters, mood and atmosphere by considering all the visual elements to make their book cover look appealing. This week they began drawing their characters using pictorial step by step guides to help them achieve a realistic image of the characters in the front page of their comic book.

Year Four

Students in Year Four created intricate zentangles in leaf prints. These artworks maybe used as a collaborative art mural in our art show in term four. This week students have used collaging techniques and have viewed artwork by Julia Erin. They have gathered inspiration from this artist and have selected various images from magazines to collage and create their final zentangle artwork. They are first planning their designs in pencil, and will later use fineliner to add depth and bold contrast to their artwork.

Year Five

Students in Year Five have been have continued to practise and develop their skills in graffiti font. They have completed their graffiti alphabet and have now selected a "tag" to express and represent themselves, or a message that they would like to share. Students have practised writing their tag in three different types of font styles and will now select their favourite font to use for their final piece of artwork on graffiti. They will also create a background drip to show contrast of colour and will consider what colours they will use for their final piece based on colour theory and colour psychology.

Year Six

Students in Year Six have been continuing their investigation into pop art and have recently completed and written about their portfolio entry piece on onomatopoeia. They created 3 Dimensional fonts and placed them against benday dot backgrounds and used various colours to layer their work. This week students begin the background preparation work for their final art piece for the unit. Students used step by step instructions to help them experiment and create realistic facial features of the eyes, nose and mouth.

Art Exhibition

An exciting event is coming up in Term 4. An Art Exhibition will be held showcasing all our amazingly talented students artwork from Terms 1, 2 and 3. We are seeking any volunteers who would like to donate their time to help be a part of and prepare for the upcoming show.

Media

Preps: Using episodes of "Bluey" as a mentor text, students are identifying the different features of a narrative. We have recently explored location/setting and problems/solutions.

Year One: To wrap up our unit exploring historical cultural stories, the year one students are watching Disney's Hercules. Students have enjoyed recognising the characters they have previously learned about appearing on the screen, such as Zeus and Hades.

Year Two: To wrap up our classes, our students have been completing their radio ads. Working in pairs, students completed a script and recorded their voices with the teacher. As we complete this unit, students will share their published pieces with one another.

Year Three: As we wrap up our unit on still-image narratives, students have gone out into the yard with their iPads to create a story of a student facing their fear by going down a slide. It has been great to see students utilising the shot types they have previously learned earlier in the year.

Year Four: As we have continued analysing the children's TV show, Thalu, students have been exploring what representation is and why representation in media is important.

Year Five: Year Five students have been tucked away in the editing room, shaping their short film footage into a cohesive piece. Students are focusing on action, sequencing, and audio.

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

Next week is the final week of music for the second cohort of students from Grade Prep to Six. We have spent time reflecting on our sessions thinking about everything we've experienced together.

Grade Prep, 1, and 2 have Clapped, Stomped, Clicked and Tapped their way through body percussion exercises. They have sung simple songs and drawn symbols to represent beat and rhythms.

For some of our students learning formal musical notation has been a new experience, and the challenge of communicating our ideas using notes has been an interesting new language.

Grades 3 & 4 learnt to play rhythmic and melodic pieces using our untuned percussion instruments and our xylophones. Clapping and playing fun songs and then exploring how melody and rhythm are communicated in written notation. All Grade 3 and 4 classes spent time learning to play an African song Funga Alafia on drums and xylophones. Grade 4 are completing their final task to write their own rhythmic notation for specific instruments using all their knowledge and experience gained over the last 12 weeks.

Grades 5 and 6 have almost completed their final task using the Garage Band application to create structured musical pieces using only digital loops of instruments provided in the app. This task allows them to flex their creative muscles without the burden of a high degree of musicianship and allows them the freedom to explore concepts like, Musical Form, Texture, Dynamics etc.

We have expanded our vocabularies to include new musical terms to help us express our thoughts about music, and we have thought more deeply about what we're hearing and what it means for to become musicians.

DANCE.

Students have been working on the similarities between the exercises and tasks given throughout class, and the cause and effect that they have in the outside world. This has created great conversations with everyone, and brought to light the relevance of a positive mindset and the way it carries through to other elements outside of school. Freestyling in class after the full stretch and warm up is not always everyone's favourite part of the lesson, but following this we had a game of freeze, (or musical statues), where students dance and freeze once the music has stopped. If they move they are out of the game, everyone is on high alert. Though students are still freestyling in this game, it showed a different side to everyone as they applied themselves completely in order to win the game or last as long as they could. Effort and energy was 100%, where shortly beforehand it was at 30-40% in their approach to freestyling.

Once the game was over, we reflected on the two exercises and what the difference was between the initial freestyling section and the game of freeze. This brought to light the relevance and significance this has on each individuals approach to a task compared to a training session in sports for example. Students realised that having a 40% mindset at practice would not get them in the game for the weekend, or help improve them to reach a higher level or team based on their approach. They took ownership in the realisation that the final destination and level reached, is the outcome of their actions and the way they perceive the journey ahead. This was a great exercise and task as it opened up their minds and eyes to what is possible out there!

P.E

Students have been working hard on there Striking skills unit. We have completed our rotations and have now moved on to our self assessments. Well done to all students for participating with enthusiasm. It has been exciting for our classes to be utilising the Brookdale reserve throughout this unit. We were also lucky enough to have members from Softball Victoria come out and run a softball clinic throughout last week.

Throughout the remainder of this term we have a number of sporting events coming up. Including our Summer inter-school sports against other schools in the Point Cook region as well as our region athletics carnival.

Good luck to everyone who is competing.

A reminder that our swimming squad program is running on Monday and Wednesday before school at the Saltwater swim school.

Spanish

As we approach the end of our rotation, preps to year 2 have been practising their singing with Señor Pasten and Javi. Señor Pasten has been using his experience as a music teacher for recording wonderful audios of students singing La araña pequeñita with some pretty fancy equipment and his legendary guitar skills. Javi has been reviewing the total of 6 songs that we have learnt during Spanish with preps: ¿Cómo te llamas?, Buenos días, Uno, dos, tres, Los siete días, Familia dedo and Tiburón bebé. Years 1 and 2 have been practising their weather song as well, which they have almost mastered already!

On the other side, it is time to finish our final projects. Grades 1 and 2 have finished their plates and took them home to share their first sentences in Spanish with family. Grades 3 and 4 will be playing the kahoots, Quizizz's, Quizlets, ZAP's and Blookets that they have created during the past 2 weeks to celebrate their learning. Last but not least, our grades 5 and 6 have been busy recording voice overs and editing their videos so we can watch them together for our last lesson.

Book Week