Dunedin Art Gallery Trip

Our Pasifika journey at the Dunedin Art Gallery

We had a fantastic time at the gallery this week. Students explored stories and artworks on the gallery tour linking Pasific nations to Aotearoa. Educator John Neumegen gave lots of great tips for using oil pastels when we created coral reef artworks. We will use these techniques when we create more art back at school with a focus on rocky shore habitats.

Hundertwasser Art Workshops

Creating artworks based on the patterns of nature.

No straight lines, spirals and bold dark colours all feature in Friedrich Hundertwasser's artwork. 

Check out some of our artwork from this week...

Compassion Projects

Showing Compassion for Animals

The Senior Team has had four compassion projects to choose from this term. We had a visit this week from Marjorie and Ralph from the Otago SPCA. As you can see from these photos, Ralph was a huge hit! The class enjoyed hearing about the wonderful work the SPCA does. They asked Marjorie some excellent questions. Thanks to all the families who have donated old towels for this cause.

Thanks too to the families who donated cans for Octacan. The Senior Team donated 117 cans in total. Another thank you to families who have donated stationery for the Pacific Islands. Next week we will be working on our final project, called Gulliver's Travels. Students will be able to bring in a book to swap for another. This is to demonstrate compassion towards the environment and also to contemplate how costly books can be when they are brand new. Why buy when you can swap your preloved books!

Poetry and Percussion

Exploring Language Features Through Nature Poems

The poem 'Rain' by Hone Tuwhare was explored this week. Students identified a number of different language features such as personification and repetition in this wonderful poem. 

Rain - Hone Tuwhare

Rain

I can hear you making
small holes in the silence
rain

If I were deaf
the pores of my skin
would open to you
and shut

And I

should know you 
by the lick of you
if I were blind

the something 
special smell of you
when the sun cakes
the ground

the steady drum-roll 
sound you make
when the wind drops

But if I should not
hear
smell or feel or see you

You would still
define me
disperse me
wash over me
rain

With our college teacher Miss Te Huki students explored using percussion in different ways to enhance their poetry reading.

Rhythm and tempo were explored.

We will continue to practise reading poetry aloud in preparation for week 5 students will read a poem to the class.

Water Exploration in Science

Thinking about erosion...

Last week's Fun Friday we went outdoors to begin experimenting with water. We talked about erosion around the city. We considered how water shapes landforms.  Students began the week by thinking about earth's 4 spheres. We wondered how the hydrosphere affects the geosphere, so we explored weathering and erosion.

We conducted our fieldwork in the school sandpit.

We created different land forms for testing including river beds, a beach, mountains/hills. For the beach landform we simulated wave action.

Some of us created a river bed.

We used our drink bottles to simulate rainfall and tested out what can happen to landforms when too much rain falls.

Some of us added plants and rocks to find out if this slowed down erosion.

We drew scientific diagrams before and after testing and then created our own definitions of erosion.

VISUAL ART TECHNIQUES AND COLOUR THEORY

This week's Fun Friday we explored painting techniques using primary colours. 

We learned about warm and cool colours while we explored different paint effects.

After this we selected warm or cool primary colours and created our own colours.

It was great fun sharing the colours we created.

Next term we will apply these new skills to the backgrounds when we are publishing our poetry.

We chose landscape or portrait for our artwork.

We learned about warm and cool colours.

Here are some of our creations.

Commonwealth Games inspired artworks.

Complimentary colours.