Wild Things soft toys

Wild Things soft toys

Friday 11 April 2014

Artworks and Holidays!

Term one finished today. Boy, what a lot has happened! 
Schools are busy, busy places and after eleven weeks our kids are ready for their holidays, particularly our newer ones, some having just turned five in the last eleven weeks.




One of our Year 6/7 classes compered Assembly this week. They reported on their leadership activities with a TV news segment and a group of six girls did a clapping sequence showcasing teamwork. Then the whole class played "The lion sleeps tonight", conducted by our talented music teacher. They used a range of instruments, including drums, ukelele, guitar, xylophones and smaller percussion instruments. Watching these young people sharing their learning experiences is fabulous. They overcome anxieties, encourage each other and display their skills and growing confidence as the leaders at school. Our older students have also participated in an Aquatics program at a nearby beach as part of their Physical Education program earlier in the term.

An announcement that fifty of our younger students learned to ride their bikes without trainer wheels is testament to the excellent Bike Safety program that has been happening over the past few weeks.

Year 3/4/5 students have been busy exploring our district as part of their History program and visited the Marine Discovery Centre during Sea Week.
http://www.marinediscoverycentre.com.au/index.html
Lessons in point and line: marine objects

Our school is less than a ten minute walk to the beach, with a gaggle of 24-30 kids coming behind! The beach figures largely in their lives. Along our coast we have a temperate reef with expansive beds of sea grass which provide the environment for some unique marine animals, including the Leafy Sea Dragon, the marine emblem for our state of South Australia. http://www.yankalilla.sa.gov.au/webdata/resources/files/LeafySeaDragonInformation.pdf
Wikimedia Commons
Students visit the beach to learn about this fragile environment, fossicking in rock pools with knowledgeable locals and experts teaching them about the amazing marine life and the importance of caring for their beach in a responsible way. We are hoping to impact on how they will help manage and care for our beaches as they use them today and in the future.
The Great Barrier Reef which runs along the coast of Queensland is a tropical reef, and has a high international profile. Less well-known to the national and international audience are our temperate reefs, yet they attract a steady stream of marine biologists and scientists for research work. They stretch along the southern coastline from Western Australia to Victoria Gradually these reefs are becoming known to an increasing number of international divers who
are making them their holiday destinations. You can read about temperate reefs here:
http://www.conservationsa.org.au/reefwatch-home/about-temperate-reefs.html
http://www.echidna.edu.au/marine/reefs.htm
Requests submitted to add links. No reply at time of publication.
Another highlight of Term 1 is Sand Sculpture Day. All classes and a large contingent of parents and other family members descend onto the sands of our beach to build an array of marine themed animals, mermaids, boats etc. It is an annual event  for our school community. No children are allowed in the water, and although staff new to our school have tingles running down their spines at the thought of 450 kids on the beach, we have never had this restriction breached. It is a fun day, looked forward to with great excitement where kids and their families work together happily.  We are off the beach by 11 am, leaving our works of art to the ebb and flow of the tides. As we leave, we look down from the cliffs to scan the sculptures that have been planned, built and decorated with any natural objects on the beach, and some coloured with jelly crystals or food colouring diluted in water. Our parents travel out of their way at times to purchase jelly crystals as we can deplete supplies at our nearest shops. We take great pride in the fact we leave the beach in a cleaner state than we find it, and observe a Code of Conduct developed by the children some years ago that is part of our school ethos.

Our younger students have been painting charming chickens! Some of these artworks are on display in the Library.


I wonder at how freely the children have captured the shapes of chickens.

Also on display are artworks produced by older kids, including works made with photographs and effects using iPads. I think these images are quite sophisticated.



Our wonderful Art Teacher aligns her skills lessons to classroom programs, helping kids to develop a deeper understanding of their learning.
I hope you enjoy viewing the art work, as the kids are quite proud to see it on display. 

It certainly lights up the Library and other public spaces in our school.
 
 
 


Please click on image to enlarge.

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