Foundation Unit

The Wheels on the bus… take us to Ballarat Art Gallery!

With great excitement the Foundation Classes, teachers and parent helpers, boarded a bus bound for the Ballarat Art Gallery last Wednesday. As part of our “Once Upon a Time” unit we have been looking at a variety of Fairy Tales, Folktales and stories from the Dreaming. We had been gifted this opportunity as part of a prize won by the Grade 3 students, and it was an introduction to Indiginous artwork, culture and history. For many Foundation students, it was the first time they had been to an Art Gallery. They enjoyed looking at the variety of art pieces on display and were respectful and careful in their appreciation of the different artwork and the general public sharing this space.

They watched a video explaining some of the history of the many different tribes as well as learning there are around 250 different languages spoken by Australian Aborigines.

Dieirdree read us a dreamtime story and we performed a dance representing totem birds in the outback. We held and passed around items used to make traditional art work and we looked at examples of Indiginous pieces including paintings and spirit sticks. The colours representing outback Australia was something we had discussed at school, and it was amazing to see these in real life and at such a large size!

We finished off by painting - using only traditional paints - the totem bird we had been, when dancing earlier in the day. This was the highlight for many of our students and the artwork was spectacular!

We finished off our excursion at Wendouree Lake, where we had lunch, played on the giant playground and watched swans and their cygnets wander around. It was the perfect way to end such a fantastic excursion.