We’ll “bee” saving our money

Our Grade Five and Grade Six students are currently choosing several activities from a range of arts and crafts beginning with the letter “M”. Money boxes made from Mache have been firm favourites and the challenge of smoothly papering four or more layers over a balloon has been a good one for many students who often seek an almost instant result. Patience and persistence are virtues which are much needed in the artroom, classroom and in life in general. I congratulate the students who have gone a long way towards achieving them already.Well Done.

Mmm…..Moneyboxes

Our Grade 5 and 6 students have been getting s”M”art, by creating artworks which begin with the letter M. Catherine of 5PL has worked hard to create a paper mache moneybox in the form of a pig. Other students have made such characters as penguins, snowmen, soccerballs and bears, all with the neat slit to take their coins. Well done Catherine, I’ll start your saving with a dollar.

Strings Attached

Our Grade 5 and Grade 6 students have been making a choice of art and craft items beginning with the letter”M”. Simple macrame work which students  seem to enjoy makes Friendship bands. We used coloured crochet cotton, cutting off between six and twelve lengths as high as their desk. They knotted the cotton at one end and put it into a slot at one end of some cardboard. The other end had slots for the cottons and they were arranged in a pattern.The basic idea for a simple diagonal stripe is to take the cotton on the left in the right hand and knot it around each of the colours twice until the other side is reached. Then each thread is moved across one place to the left allowing a vacant space for the starting cotton which has travelled across to the right. Congratulations to Ishara who used twelve cottons in a more complex arrowhead design. Ishara is purposefully making the colourful band to brighten up the life of her Auntie who is quite unwell.

Lest We Forget

At 11am on November 11th each year we commemorate Remembrance Day. Our school holds a special ceremony complete with the Last Post played on a bugle  by one of our parents and the reading of the solemn poem “In Flanders Fields”. My contribution will be to take photos, preserving the occasion in time. The above photos were taken  by my husband in Cambridge, UK in June 2011. I am posting them today to show our students the beauty of the red poppies which grow wild in the fields  and cemeteries of the UK and Europe.We will proudly wear  the RSL’s fundraising poppies sold by the students of Mrs Lewis’s Grade three class, “Lest We Forget”.

The Cushioning Effect

Nicola’s birds seem to be deep in thought or conversation.


Caitlyn’s lizard stands proudly in the desert.

 

 

Our Grade 5 students have made some interesting cushions  and puppets using original designs based on the broad topic “Australia”. They did all the sewing themselves and are to be congratulated on bringing  their different ideas to life. See if you can find the “Black Saturday Bushfires”, “Jail Bird”,  “An Australian Beach”, The Lizard”  and “Crabs”.  I am constantly amazed with the creativity of our students and  by the different things they make within given guidelines. The double faced puppet has a Australian Politics theme. Julia Gillard (with the red hair) is on one side (our Prime Minister) and Tony Abbott is on the opposite side (our Opposition Leader).