The Magic Flying Carpet

The junior and middle syndicates have been creating short drama skits about discovering magic flying carpets. They have enjoyed developing their ideas about where they found the carpet, how they felt and what they said as it began to lift off the floor, and of course where it took them to!
These photos (above and below) show Ella and Lauren presenting their skit.

                                                   
                                                 
                                                    Below: Toby and Benjamin's flying carpet takes off!

Amazing Flying Machines Years 3-6

The middle syndicate have been creating drawings of amazing flying machines as part of our theme this year "Te Rangi".
We have also been integrating dance and drama sessions around the same topic.
The images show some of the students working co-operatively to create human flying machines, paying particular attention to creating formations that show varying levels to enhance interest.

Above: Cam sits at the wheel inside a "flying machine".

Above: Milan is the energy source of this flying machine, while Greer provides the mid level part by balancing on her head and hands.

Above and below: Groups at work creating and developing shapes for their flying machines.

Keep an eye on the blog to see upcoming posts of the students drawings of flying machines.

Art Criticism and Appreciation

This term we are learning how to observe and discuss artworks. We are learning about some famous artists such as Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Cezanne as well as New Zealand artists like Philip Clairmont and Robyn Kahukiwa.
We are learning to discuss artworks using the four steps of Describe, Analyse, Interpret and Decide,
(or List, Explain, Discuss and Evaluate).
As well as looking at and discussing the artist's works, we are having a go at drawing and painting similar subjects or compositions in a style similar to or influenced by the artists.

Room 5 students sketching a still life similar to Cezanne.

Room 7 students sketching a still life composition

Students from Room 8 ( Years 0-2) working on a collaborate work after learning about Van Gogh's The Starry Night.

Fresh Moves 2015

Fresh Moves is a dance festival held each year at Baycourt Theatre. Schools are invited to enter a group of 20-50 students to present a 5-7 minute dance. Although it is not a competition, there are a panel of experts who give us feedback on our dance. Anyone from years 5-8, with a great attitude, can join our Fresh Moves dance group at Te Puna School. 

The whole idea is for the students to create the dance themselves, from the concept, to the choreography, costumes, music and lighting. We have a series of workshops where we all work together creating and rehearsing. The senior students are given the opportunity to lead and make some of the final decisions throughout the process.

This year the theme was "Innovation" and our dance was about us all working together to be innovative. We received some awesome feedback about this and about our whole concept. The panel also really liked how we used a variety of shapes and levels in our choreography. 

Drama

Rooms 7 and 10 have been learning about character development and relationships in Drama this term. In these photos the students had to take on the character of a member of a fictional family and pose for photos for the "family album".

ART CAMP 2015

Each year a group of students is selected to attend an Art Camp at Waihi Beach. The purpose of the four day camp is:

To develop and extend practical knowledge and develop ideas in the visual arts.

 To benefit and challenge students who are gifted and talented in the visual arts: providing opportunities  to further explore their abilities in a context where art and creativity is the main focus for an extended time period.

This year each student painted an acrylic on canvas. They selected their own painting subject, and completed preliminary drawings, before we left for camp.

Painting workshops are held during the day and the evening with breaks every couple of hours. 

Rooms 1 and 6 "Garden Artists"

We are basing our arts learning around the garden. 
Observational Drawing
We went down to the garden with our sketch boards and found a quiet place to just sit and sketch. We are learning to make observational drawings, so we spent some time just looking at (observing) what we were going to draw. We drew the main shapes first and then added detail.

Kaleb and Denali 

Gabriel finds a shady spot to sketch

We are going to work on these sketches in class, adding detail and maybe some shading. We will develop our sketches into another artwork. 











Dance

Room 1 showing Ms Shilling what they have so far

We made up moves based on "working in the garden". We had to have a set of 8 steps. Then we taught our moves to a partner, and learnt our partners moves. Each pair ended up knowing two sets of 8 steps. We practiced our moves until we knew them off by heart.

Room 6 practicing their moves

We will continue to add to our moves until we develop a little dance sequence based on "working on the garden'. We will put our dance moves to music. 
This little video is of us working on our moves together.