Learning & Teaching (Term 1)

Physical Education

Physical Education: Foundation

This term the Foundation students will be focussing on Gymnastics with coaches from The Mornington Gymnastics Club assisting with the program. There will also be a focus on playing directional games.

Physical Education: Gr 1&2

This term the Foundation students will be focusing on Gymnastics with coaches from The Mornington Gymnastics Club assisting with the program. There will also be a focus on playing directional games and simple ball games.

Physical Education: Foundation: Gr 3&4

This term the focus will be on Athletics. The track sessions will concentrate on sprinting, hurdles and middle distance running. There will be a focus on starting technique, hurdles technique and efficient arm action. The field session will include discus, shotput, long jump, shotput and high jump. Students will have the opportunity to participate in Before School sessions, at recess there will be training for circular relay teams and at lunchtime middle distance runners will have extra training sessions. Selected students will have the opportunity to participate in the Track Athletic at the end of term. Early in term 2 selected students will participate in the Field Athletics and the Cross Country.

Physical Education: Foundation: Gr 5&6

Japanese

Term 1 Overview

“Dekiru dake, Nihongo ga hanashimashou! “

‘Let’s speak as much Japanese as possible!’

This year the St Brendan’s students will commence their second year of formal Japanese instruction. With a solid start in 2018, of both the language and the culture, our school vision is to have the students’ using as much functional daily Japanese as possible, in the classrooms, on the playgrounds and at home. I am encouraging the children to use a language method known as ‘translanguaging’, in which they can substitute a word in a sentence to use what they know in context. For example they may use a sentence like ‘Kyo I am cold’ to express “today I am cold!”

This method, whilst unconventional and different to the way we were rote taught languages, helps the children to feel empowered and successful with finding opportunities each day to use their limited, but expanding, vocabulary.

We are also implementing a visual and gesture based system of learning vocabulary, in line with the most up to date research of language acquisition. This also makes their learning links to their classroom VCOP program visible and measurable.

"The subjects' recollection was best in relation to terms they themselves had expressed using gestures. When they heard the term and its translation and also observed a corresponding image, they were also better able to remember the translation. By contrast, however, tracing a term or observing a gesture was no better than just hearing the term,"

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. 2019

With this in mind, your child/ren may be coming home with what may seem to be sign language or gestures. Many of them are indeed grounded in the Japanese Sign Language, and many are generated by the children themselves; to empower them further with establishing a grounded connection to their vocabulary studies.

I am so excited to continue to work with the students and watch their vocabulary grow to be inclusive of more complex sentence patterns and phrases.

As always I thank the parent community for embracing the students’ efforts and engagement, as well as for supporting me with the creation of resources/laminating and the likes. Be sure to watch this space if you would like to Netflix and laminate, because I am constantly creating new and fresh resources to keep the enthusiasm and repetitive practise high.

‘doumo arigtou gozaimasu’

FOUNDATION- Nihongo is my Superpower

This term the Foundation children will be introduced to Japan; it’s language and culture. We will use song-based play, gestures and role-play to help get up and moving while beginning to investigate Japanese. The main focus of the Foundation students’ learning will be socialising and communicating in Nihongo(Japanese), whilst learning to understand and respond appropriately to simple classroom instructions. We have a lot of time ahead of us to explore, learn and grow. Like all of the learning in Foundation level, we’re only just getting started and are in no rush to finish a race!

YEAR 1/2- Konnichiwa! I speak Nihongo!

The Year 1/2 students will expand on their prior learning by participating in guided gesture based group activities such as games, songs and simple tasks, using movement, gestures and pictures to support understanding and to convey meaning about themselves and their daily lives. They will be explicitly studying grammatical points including how to end a statement or ask a question in Japanese, as well as building sentences using colourful word blocks that identify nouns and verbs. We will be trying our hardest to implement spontaneous language use which will also increase our social interactions. After-all, we all smile in the same language!

YEAR 3/4- Ganbatteiru- I’m Working Hard!

The Year 3/4 students will gain momentum by using simple statements and gestures to express aspects of self; such as membership of family, friendship, gender, school/class or cultural groups. By doing so they will compare and contrast their own family traditions and culture to that of Japanese people. They will orally create bilingual versions of familiar texts such as captions for images and displays and investigate publishing and reflective software such as SeeSaw to start broadening their language learning horizons. With the intention to inform others the students will identify specific points of information in familiar types of written, spoken and digital texts that discuss people, places and objects. We will be diving into the depths of our learning, we can’t wait!

YEAR 5/6- Isshokenmei- With All My Might

Saru mo ki kara ochiru’- even monkeys fall from trees…translation: nobody’s perfect so we try our best to go with the ‘swing’ of learning a language and culture that is different to our own. The focus for our Year 5/6 students is to understand and identify elements of basic grammar and sentence structure and interaction patterns. They will also be introduced to gesture as a language learning tool and we will use these gestures to engage in transactions and collaborative activities that involve planning and turn-taking. By using voice recording software, they will collect evidence of their current skills and set future learning goals in the area of increasing sentence complexity or fluency and the rate of their speech. Through persistence and reflection we will observe that through struggles we achieve the most unexpected of things!

Visual Arts

In a few weeks time, the Somerville fair will be held, which is celebrating Somerville's history of apple orchards. All levels will be working on a theme of apples and apple trees and talking about what Somerville might have been like 100 years ago.

Visual Arts - Foundation

The Foundation students will be introduced to different art materials and will create a self-portrait. They will be learning about shapes and primary colours.

Visual Arts - Junior School

The grade 1 and 2 students will be viewing self-portraits by various artists and discussing how the portraits can tell us something about the person. The students will create their own self-portrait, focusing on creating texture within their work.

Visual Arts - Middle School

The grade 3 and 4 students will investigate the works of Mirka Mora, a Melbourne based artist whose works included painting and soft sculpture. The students will use her work as inspiration to create their own painting and then sew a soft toy to match their painting.

Visual Arts - Senior School

The grade 5 and 6 students will study the incredible works of MC Escher, whose works are currently displayed at the National Gallery of Victoria. The students will learn about shape and how to create their own tessellations.

Music & Preforming Arts

Welcome to another exciting year of The Performing Arts: Music, Dance and Drama at St. Brendan’s School.

Foundation

This term, the Foundation students will be working on call and response repertoire as they learn to differentiate between their singing voice and their speaking voice. The students will also learn to sing phrases and whole pieces of music to the accompaniment of live instruments and recorded tracks. The Foundation students will be introduced to the concepts of rhythm and melody as well as learn about the presence of the beat heard in pieces of music. They will learn about identifying, moving to and playing percussion instruments to the beat. All of these skills will become essential for students to participate in preparations for the whole school production of Madagascar Junior, to be staged in Term Three at The Frankston Arts Centre on September 19th, 2019. How very exciting! Families are kindly requested to please save the date for this very special event as we prepare and anticipate this performance later this year. This biannual event is a wonderful opportunity for students to develop their skills in The Performing Arts as well as an integral part of our school curriculum and community culture at St. Brendan’s. It is expected that all students participate in the production performance.

Year One and Two

This term, the Year One and Two students will further develop their understanding of the concepts of rhythm, melody, tempo and beat. They will continued to learn about identifying, moving to and playing percussion instruments to the beat as well as reading and interpreting basic rhythms. Students will also develop their voices as young consumers of music, by explaining what they like about pieces of music from a variety of contexts and explaining why. A major focus will be on team work for developing skills in dance and movement, which will be essential for students to participate in preparations for our whole school production of Madagascar Junior, to be staged in Term Three at The Frankston Arts Centre on September 19th, 2019. How very exciting! Families are kindly requested to please save the date for this very special event as we prepare and anticipate the performance later this year. This biannual event is a wonderful opportunity for students to develop their skills in The Performing Arts as well as an integral part of our school curriculum and community culture at St. Brendan’s. It is expected that all students participate in the production performance.

Year Three and Four

This term, the Year Three students commence learning to play the guitar and the Year Four students will continue their learning journey on this instrument. They will build upon their existing skills for working with tempo and beat to assist their learning on this instrument. Students will also continue developing their understanding of music theory based concepts as they become more literate with reading, writing and interpreting standard rhythmic notation. A major focus will be on team work for developing skills in dance and movement, which will be essential for students to participate in preparations for our whole school production of Madagascar Junior, to be staged in Term Three at The Frankston Arts Centre on September 19th, 2019. How very exciting! Families are kindly requested to please save the date for this very special event as we prepare and anticipate the performance later this year. This biannual event is a wonderful opportunity for students to develop their skills in The Performing Arts as well as being an integral part of our school curriculum and community culture at St. Brendan’s. It is expected that all students participate in the production performance.

Year Five and Six

This term, the Year Five and Six students will continue learning to play the guitar, keyboard and drum-kit and develop skills as lead vocalists as they work as members of a class ensemble. They will learn to play carefully selected repertoire which is relevant to them as adolescent consumers of music, building upon their existing skills for working with tempo, dynamics and beat to assist their learning on these instruments. Students will also continue developing their understanding of music theory based concepts as they become more literate with reading, writing and interpreting standard rhythmic notation. A major focus will be on team work for working as members of the class ensemble, which will be essential for students to participate in preparations for our whole school production of Madagascar Junior, to be staged in Term Three at The Frankston Arts Centre on September 19th, 2019. How very exciting! Families are kindly requested to please save the date for this very special event as we prepare and anticipate the performance later this year. This biannual event is a wonderful opportunity for students to develop their skills in The Performing Arts as well as being an integral part of our school curriculum and community culture at St. Brendan’s. It is expected that all students participate in the production performance.

I look forward to working in partnership with students, teachers and their families in The Performing Arts: Music, Dance and Drama again this year.

Yours in harmony

Emma Chapple

Performing Arts: Music, Dance and Drama Teacher