Living Bamboo, ‘Four White Horses’ and ‘Dream Baby, Dream’.
Hello everyone,
Across the Neighbourhoods we are continuing to hone our skills in learning short songs and rounds by heart. It has been so much fun, and the students are developing their aural awareness and imitation skills. The whole school is continuing to learn ‘Dream Baby, Dream’ for our Reconciliation Assembly, the Yr 1/2 Ngh 1 PHN news jingle has been recorded, and, a fabulous Working Bee on Saturday revealed some budding gardening umph in some of our students.
‘Ghost of Tom’ is a new humorous round which the students of 5/6 Uke Club are singing and playing on the ukulele, while other Neighbourhoods are accompanying the song with body percussion. Another new song sparking joy and co-ordination is ‘Four White Horses’. It’s a punchy tune and is performed with a cracking clapping game for student pairs or groups of 4. This has been a easy way to encourage students to co-operate with students out side their immediate friendship groups, and the motivation to achieve the complex clapping pattern was high. The students in Yr 4 have really embraced this activity, but we remain curious about the lyric ‘Shadow playing is a ripe banana’!
We are looking forward to performing ‘Dream Baby, Dream’ next Friday for our Reconciliation Assembly. My thanks to Ruby and the 3/4 Singing Club and Yr 3/4 students for learning the harmony parts, and to Cleo from Yr5/6 and Keith for agreeing to accompany the song. The song has inspired thoughtful discussion, and students are understanding the role that music can play in raising public awareness around the need for change and growth in our society.
‘Dream Baby, Dream’ was written in the 1970s and has been rearranged as a protest song for the Indigenous Women’s Choir, Spinifex Gum. Here is a link to their performance of this song which is moving and powerful.Spinifex Gum singing ‘Dream Baby, Dream.’ https://video.link/w/DkYxc
Bravo to the musicians of Yr 1/2 Neighbourhood 1 for their recording of the PHN news jingle. To achieve the best attention-catching performance, the students patiently recorded their individual percussion rhythms and announcements. We created a multi track recording of nine tracks which was edited into a 30 second jingle. We are on a creative roll with jingles, and we have some in the pipeline for the weather and sports reports.
Although we are currently in the midst of cold, clear overnight skies; and an eclipse as I type🌘, the contrasting heady warm, sunny days over the weekend provided us with magical weather for the Working Bee on Saturday. There was more action required than a simple ‘flick and swish’ of a magic wand to transform the vegie patch and plant umpteen grasses, shrubs and bamboo in the west play ground. Thank you to all the wonderful parents for their generous yakka and care to transform our gardens, and a big thank you to Izzy, Lulu, Francie, Esther, Banjo, Henry, Ruben and Arlo who were doing a super, tireless job helping on the morning – midday shift, and to all students who helped later in the afternoon. Getting into the communal helping spirit is tremendously rewarding, and I am particularly happy that there is a plantation of the Gracilias Bamboo adjacent to the Bamboo sculpture. The circle of living bamboo has tweaked the student’s curiosity, and we are all trying to guess how many years it will take for the bamboo to grow tall enough so that we can train the canes together to form a hut. This is a really lovely extension of our current Yr 6 student’s bamboo design concept from 2018: a new chapter to their legacy which will continue to grow. Thank you too, to Esmé and Hannah for their enthusiasm and help in making this vision happen.
In spite of the ever changing COVID landscape, we are all looking forward to celebrating the achievements of our Instrumental Music Students. Their Winter Concert which was scheduled for June 4th next Friday evening, but due to the Lockdown, this concert will be rescheduled. Please stay in touch with Compass announcements over the coming week for announcements relating to Instrumental Music.
In the meantime, enjoy the sunny days and take care.
Cheerio, Deb