Performing Arts
Communicating with the Specialist Team
We look forward to partnering with you in 2020, and welcome your input:
Penelope Lang (Performing Arts) lang.penelope.l@edumail.vic.gov.au
An Overview of our Learning
Performing Arts (weeks 7 and 8)
This Friday evening I will be attending the Department of Education, Performing Arts Unit in the city to participate in the first Mass Choir professional development. I will meet lots of other teachers from participating schools and together we will begin to learn some of the VSSS songs with the Musical Director, Rob Latham. I am very excited and can’t wait to start teaching our VSSS singers at USPS.
Unfortunately the NEVR youth concert, due to be performed at Hamer Hall in May, has been cancelled. Thank you to those of you who expressed an interest in participating. We will apply again next year.
Foundation: The students continued to explore the musical element of Tempo and worked as a whole class to perform ‘Largo’ (slowly), ‘Presto’ (quickly) and ‘Moderato’ (moderate/middle). We used percussion instruments to display our learning with one person being the ‘conductor’ ensuring people kept in time with a ‘steady beat’. You can practise this at home if you have some chopsticks!
This week the students began to write, clap and say simple graphic notation such a Ta and Ti-ti. The students are starting to listen to rhythms and match them to the written notation. They are working in small groups to write their own rhythms incorporating changes of tempo. We have enjoyed some relaxing visualisations to finish our lessons.
Year 1 and 2: It is always fun to teach musical concepts through song and this week we sang, “It’s My Car” to consolidate our beat keeping skills and to explore the musical rest. Can you remember the words? “Honk honk, rattle rattle, toot crash, beep beep”. Perhaps you could sing it in your family? Don’t forget to take a rest! We continued working on our rhythm clocks and students quickly learnt that writing rhythms is very different to playing rhythms. It has been great to see lots of resilience in my room.
This week the students worked in their small groups to perform their rhythm clock compositions. The ask of the task was to move smoothly from one bar of ‘graphic notation’ to the next whilst keeping a steady beat. Team work and listening skills were very important. We finished with a game of Rock Stars.
Year 3 and 4: We warmed up with some ‘Music Maths’ in preparation for finishing the compositions which required four beats in every bar. We started listening to different musical patterns and discovered that some rhythms sound like full stops whilst others sound like commas.
This week we will finish and perform our 4x4 rhythmic compositions. One person will keep the beat whilst the other person performs the rhythm. The students will reflect on and refine their compositions based on what ‘sounds nice’ to them. I always encourage the students to stop and listen to the music they create. Some students are composing for pitched instruments but most will perform on a percussive instrument of choice.
Year 5 and 6: The students continued to research their chosen artiste for their ‘Music Poster Project’. The partner work has been a little challenging with some students away on camp or at swimming events. There will be no more time allocated in class for the project. All posters AND presentations are due at the beginning of Term 2.
This week we finalised the classes Top 25 playlist and discussed the importance of appropriateness for audience when playing certain songs. We are now beginning to look at the elements of music and how music is composed, read and played. We will play a mixture of pitched and unpitched instruments over the next few weeks and into Term 2.
We are starting a School Band!!!
Dear Upwey South Parents,
It has been a dream of ours for quite some time to start a Year Five/Six band at USPS. We have many talented musicians and a passionate team of instrumental teachers. We are really hoping to start our school band in Term Two. We do, however, need some additional musical instruments and equipment before we can get started. We are calling on anyone who might be able to donate any of the following to the school.
Here is what we need:
Electric Guitar
Bass Guitar
Guitar Amp
Bass Amp
Mixing Desk - 12 Channels or More
Guitar Stand Rack or 3 x Individual Stands
Vocal Mics x 4
Mic Stands x 4
XLR Leads x 5
Guitar Leads x 5
We thank you kindly in advance for your donations!
Penelope and the Groove Foundations Team - Jordan, Jed and Amaris