Thanks to everyone for a fabulous Term of Music, and the added adventure into the Performing Arts. What has been really evident across the Neighbourhoods is the potential to relate to the outside world through the performing arts and share how we can express our understanding of the world in multiple ways. Having the opportunity to venture beyond our music groove to ‘tell stories’ through movement has expanded our horizons and made reaching for the most distant ideas seem a reasonable ‘why not?’, and that’s terrific growth!
Whilst we are enjoying our Spring Break, our wonderful Coro d’Oro will be practising their song Il Pulcino Ballerino to present for the Melbourne Italian Festa at the Royal Exhibition Building on Sunday 6th October. Good Luck!! We are so proud of you! Please read on for more news…
Reflecting on the past ten weeks, which were possibly the fastest ten weeks in my life :), I’ve been continually ‘bowled over’ by the number of directions our performing arts/music activities have taken us. Whether the explorative ‘touch downs’ in related learning areas were fleeting or deep, new or revisited, we were treated to a different angle of engagement in our learning. Music always spreads our interdisciplinary wings, and by weaving Music together with Performing Arts our wings have broadened their span with radiant feathers; we have ‘embraced the the mystifying balance of logic and creativity’ (as described by the Department of Performing Arts at Derby University). In just this past week, the Performing Arts sessions have intersected with literacy, history, maths, decoding, languages, the art of Foley in animation sound design and personal reflection.
Having ‘rapped’ through picture story books, the Yr 56s had a go at writing their own Rap verses. Some students took a while to push through ‘writer’s block’ while wondering what to write a Rap about; ‘I’m stuck, I’m stuck, got nothing to say. Got no thoughts to put on paper today’, and so the the rap continued describing ‘four random windows’, ‘Thesaurus not ‘thesaurusing’’, and other ‘Creative kids all rappin’ and rhyming’! Other students rapped about food, sport, their pets, and being ‘soooo ready to get to high school’, or not wanting to leave all that is familiar after Yr 6. Some students wrote about their uncertainties, their challenges and how they worry about the world they are inheriting. Over all, the students valued the freedom of Rap and experienced it as a relevant literary style that can swing from deeply personal to random, whilst colliding genres and ‘voices’. Then they rapped through their texts, crafting and tweaking lines, to emphasise the beat and test their choice of whether or not to rhyme for added impact.
Meanwhile, the Year 2s unpacked why the longest music note value we commonly learn is called a semibreve. The semibreve lasts for four beats, but it’s a half of something called a breve! ‘Half of a breve? Then, what’s a breve’ the Year 2s wondered? And if breves are not the longest notes ever, and semi quavers are not the shortest, what notes are? And, if there are four semi quavers in a crotchet and 4 crotchets in a semibreve, how many semiquavers are in a breve? Then… ‘Why are we doing maths Deb?’
The Preps are great decoders, after-all, they are already budding text decoders and now they are decoding symbols that represent rhythm. The Preps also have keen ears and identified what kinds of sounds they could hear in the animation of Eric Carle’s ‘Very Hungry Caterpillar’, and learnt a song in French too! Swing over to the 34 Neighbourhood and sing the opening line of ‘O Mio Babbino Caro’ and the 34s can’t help but sing the whole aria through… just for fun, or because they can, or have grown to love it, or maybe they could feel that spontaneously they were united as one. At the time, they were standing around a group of tables facing each other, then were singing gently to each other… restorative magic!
Beyond Spring, we have Term 4’s adventures to look forward to including Instrumental Music performances and The Red-capped Robins will perform for the Bazaar. This year we welcome back singers from Brunswick South Primary school as guest choristers as well as featuring our Parents and Students choir too. Performing Arts will continue for the Preps – Yr 2s, and Music will resume in the senior school along with some performing arts responses to ‘areas of interest’. There is already a spot fire of passion to perform a ‘Horrible Histories’ inspired Henry XIII recount, except that our Henry may well end up with 11 wives to avoid casting disappointments. Luckily, so I’m told, Henry XIII would consume two roast chickens for a snack, so there are plenty of casting opportunities there! Watch this space! And, we have our end of year celebrations; the School Expo, Year 6 Graduation and whole community Final Assembly.
Many thanks to everyone for a wonderful Term. With best wishes for a happy Spring break, Deb.