We have been fortunate to have been able to display a Dragon Kite from Bali as part of our Arts of Asia theme. We thank Mrs Ammouche for the thoughtful loan of this delightful artwork.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of hosting Sue Hellman of  Surrey, BC, Canada on a tour of our school and accompanying her as we visited neighbouring schools, Taylors Lakes Secondary College and Monmia Primary School. Sue has been in Australia presenting at the ACEC 2010  on Digital Diversity at Melbourne Convention Centre. Whilst visiting Australia she was keen to see Australian schools in operation so we are very grateful to Principal  Peter Reading of Taylors Lakes Primary, David Caust of Taylors Lakes Secondary School and Principal Lorraine Bell of Monmia Primary School. After school Sue generously ran a Workshop on the use of Web Tools to enhance learning. We are grateful to Sue for her help and enthusiasm. I feel it’s infectious. Thank You to Sue and to those teachers dedicated enough to attend PD on a Friday afternoon. As Sue’s Wiki says “Small Changes Big Returns”.

Today we looked on Teachertube at a great Panda slideshow with accompanying Sesame Street music.
The Prep and  Grade One students wanted to play it over and over again. They really enjoyed drawing Pandas with decicious bamboo to eat. These drawings are by Prep students Isha and Alex of Prep CR.

I recently travelled through Kyneton in Victoria and was very impressed with a beautiful mural made by community members as a memorial to the people and property lost in the Black Saturday Fires of  February 2009.
I took the photos with my iPhone so the quality of the photos isn’t as good as I’d like but I am keen to show that there’s stunning and thought provoking Art works out in our Communities which convey  strong messages and are an avenue for expression of  feelings. Seeing the use of pieces of china and molten glass etc. recovered from the sites of homes destroyed by the dreadful fires made me feel grateful that something beautiful could emerge from such horror.

We recently scanned all our old photographs and this one stood out as being appropriate for today.
 Five year old Jessica is probably at least twenty-one by now but her artwork lives on to remind us of the joyous holiday time we have and the enjoyment we have when we are free to create.