Primary Specialists

Visual Art with Ms Mancini and Ms F

In the past couple of weeks, students in Years One - Six have been thinking about using their knowledge of the Art conventions (line, shape and colour) to create their first art pieces. Our main focus is on the Transdisciplinary Theme ‘How Ee Express Ourselves’ and our learning is around the Indigenous culture looking at artworks that portray a close connection with land/country. Indigenous artwork is often seen to depict and include geographical formations as well as native animals, plants and surrounds. Each year level has been discussing, reflecting and unpacking various examples of Indigenous art styles; viewing the artworks of various indigenous artists including Rosemary Petyarre. They have also looked at styles such as X-ray drawings and have begun preliminary sketches within their Art journals. Below are student interpretations and preparations for their final pieces.

In Foundation, students have been introduced to line, shape and colour conventions. We have had discussions on different line forms such as spirals, horizontals, verticals, and diagonal lines, and we have also looked at creating closed geometric and organic shapes. Students were then asked to infill their lines and shapes with warm tones of colour. 

Spanish with Mr Paston and Mr Javi

Hola y bienvenidos a la clase de Español

During their first weeks of Spanish, our Prep students learned how to introduce themselves and greet each other in Spanish, count, and recognise colours in Spanish. We played role games for greetings, colour treasure hunts, sang songs, danced, and played games. 

Year One and Two students have been learning how to express their emotions in Spanish, ask other people how they are feeling and parts of the face. Their lessons have been full of colouring, writing, literacy-rich resources, emotional learning activities, creativity, and games.

Our students in Years Three and Four have immersed themselves in history and geography, learning about the 21 Spanish-speaking countries and their flags. In addition to this, they have also learned the means of transport and how to tell others how they go to school. They have used ICT resources to play games and test their knowledge, played games, and filled in maps.

Students in Years Five and Six have delved deeper into Spanish grammar by learning the proper use of articles when using food-related vocabulary so they can properly build sentences in Spanish to express their liking or dislike towards certain foods. They have also learned about different tenses in Spanish to write recipes. Once they have already learned the vocabulary, we have played games using these words so they would retain the newly acquired vocabulary.

Bilingual students have been practising their Spanish spelling making emphasis on learning the proper use of tilde diacrítica, palabras agudas, llanas and esdrújulas so they can improve their writing skills.

Adios

Señor Javi and Señor Pastėn

Physical Education

Students have enjoyed what has a been a busy start to our Physical Education program this year. It has been great seeing everyone enthusiastically participating in our minor game activities. 

We have now kicked off our Athletics program/training in the lead up to our Athletics carnivals. Its exciting to see all students being risk takers in our high jump and hurdles training. 

We recently attended the swimming carnival with huge success. Well done to all those involved for representing our school with such enthusiasm. 

DANCE

Dance has seen the Year One students working on the basic functions of the body through a their initial stretches and warm ups, through to working on different beats and rhythms as a collective group. This is to help build and work on memory expansion, attention to detail, and see and repeat actions. It has also helped build control and placement, and enhance the connection between the mind and body. 

We have also been exploring different steps that highlight and showcase various shapes and patterns. Through this exercise we have been changing the order of the shapes and patterns presented to help students identify different sequences, and remember the consistent changes. This exercise is also put together for teachers to take back to the classrooms, and use and connect to some of the related subjects they would be teaching.

The first VSSS rehearsals and parts of choreography have already been taught to the various dance teachers across the state representing the participating schools for this years show!. This years show is already looking amazing with the visions and ideas being shown and explained to teachers, as we prepare to start teaching the lucky 16 representing Saltwater College for 2023! We have 12 girls and 4 boys from Years Six and Seven all set to go as we start our weekly intense rehearsals next week! 

Music with Mr Saxton

The first cohort of students in Years Prep to Six are currently discovering the Elements of Music. We are following rhythmic patterns together as whole classes, attempting to ‘find the beat’ together in simple songs, creating our own simple patterns and extending our musical vocabularies as we analyse the sounds we use to make music. 

Prep J in the image below swapped clapping and stomping to explore keeping a steady beat on the hand drums.

Media Art with Mr Howarth

In Media, students have continued exploring their introductory units, focusing on specific skill sets and topics, including:

Preps: Using photography to visually represent our emotions

Year One: Recording voice and sound on our devices

Year Two: Introduction to basic shot types, such as long, medium and close-up shots.

Year Three: Refresher course on our shot types, such as high and low angle. 

Year Four: Creation of montages based on our daily school life

Year Five: Introduction to sound and video editing

Year Six: Using Encanto as a mentor text for examining the challenges of migration

Attached below are photos from Mr Cameron Vella’s 5C, as they use iMovie to add sound effects and audio to a silent video. Students explored the samples of effects and music, layering audio on top of one another in order to create mood and tension within the scene.