Specialist Connect!

Thursday 2nd June, 2016

Get out your diaries - open your calendars - Production dates have been confirmed!!

Mentone Park Primary School presents

Alice's Adventure!

Wednesday 14th and Thursday 15th September, 2016

Parkdale Secondary College, Warren Road, Mordialloc.

Performing Arts News!

Things are getting exciting in the Performing Arts room with rehearsals for our Production Performance getting well under way. There will be more information to follow in the coming weeks, including costume information and the ways you can help! In the meantime, if you have any questions you can contact me at Mrscheers@mentoneparkps.vic.edu.au   

Last week our students were using Zumba inspired videos for our warming up exercises - they were a brilliant way to get everyone up and moving, especially in this cold weather! Whilst beginning production choreography, we have been learning about locomotor (the way we move around/across the stage) and non-locomotor (on the spot) movements. The Grade 5/6 students have also been looking at the ways we can show emotions through dance, by using the whole body - not just their faces!

Visual Arts news

What an exciting and very messy Term 2 we have had. In Art this term, students have been working with paint, clay, paper mache' and a variety of collage and glue materials. A friendly reminder that all students should have an art smock, as we have limited spares in the art room. Even an oversized old t-shirt is fine.

Preps have been exploring repetition with shapes and form while using paint and sponges, while Grade 1s and 2s have been experimenting with using paper as a sculpture. Our adventurous Grade 3s and 4s have been working with clay creating Aztec jewellery and are now busily constructing whimsical cats out of paper mache'. These creations will be beautifully adorned in bright colours to suit our Mexican theme.  Our Grade 5 and 6 students created their own super hero characters- with new and exciting super powers, after completing their mandalas on CDs.  

Our next topics will be dot paintings, inspired by Aboriginal Artists.

Physical Education News!

Congratulations to our Division Cross Country runners on their fantastic efforts this week!!

With all of our students within the top 30 for each age group. Well done to Mia J who came 4th and has made it through to Regionals!

It has been great to see all of our students continue to develop their fundamental motor skills, in particular with our Prep to Grade 2 improving their marking and kicking during our AFL unit and our Grade 3-6 students coordinating their dribbling, passing and shooting during our soccer unit.

Keep up the great work everyone!!

Miss L :)

  

Connect with the Specialists

Connect with the Specialists

Term 2, Week 2, 22nd April.

Performing Arts News:

I hope your children have rushed home excitedly to tell you about our production theme as each grade has now heard the storyline of our Production and they know what scene their grade is representing.

Prep: Bank Robbers

Grade One: Dinosaurs

Grade Two: Poppies (Magical Poppies, not 'just flowers')

Grade Three: Pirates

Grade Four: Oompa Loompas

Grade Five and Six: A mixture of Main Characters, City folk and Policemen.

All grade 5/6 students will have the ability to audition to be one of our main characters. Mrs Lough, Mrs Samperi and myself will be auditioning the students sometime during Week 4.  All 5/6 students will be learning the audition dance sequence and have been given a small sample script to practise with. Those students who would like to sing can sing a song of their choice for a maximum of 1 minute.

The staff and I have been diligently sorting through our old costumes in hope of reusing as many costumes and props as possible. Please do not worry about any costume requirements yet - we are still in the planning stages so nothing is set in concrete.

There will be lots of information to come, but if you have any questions please come and see me in the Music Room, phone the school, send a note with your child or contact me through Tiqbiz.

Have a wonderful long weekend - Mrs Amy Cheers. 

Visual Art News:

Observational Art- Museum Artefacts and Specimens

With our units of Science well underway this term, the Art department has hired some wonderful kits from The Melbourne Museum. These unique specimens and artefacts, are being used during art class to inspire our observational drawings. Students from all year levels, will be given plenty of opportunities to examine with magnifying glasses, touch and smell the forms. It was lovely to see the students so involved in the first few classes this term, as many worked out they could triple layer magnifying glasses to create a microscope magnification over the resin set bones. There was plenty of excitement in the room, as they held skeletons, touched snake skins, examined the life cycles of frogs, bees and butterflies, looked closely at creatures from under the sea and found inspiration from all sorts of mini beasts.

With students beginning to make their first observational sketches, I look forward to developing their skills over the next few weeks to create beautifully detailed scientific art works, which can be incorporated into other aspects of their painting and printmaking tasks.

Regards, Danielle Searles - Art Teacher. 

Physical Education News:

Our Grade 3-6 students competed in their Annual X Country trials, with many students achieving their goals, beating P.Bs and getting into the District X Country. Congratulations to the following students:

Our Prep to Grade 2 students continued the exploration of movement and have been focusing on their eye-hand coordination during our Basketball lessons. Some very impressive moves and skills have been shown by our Junior students! Well done J

Grade 5 & 6 students have completed their Interschool Summer sports matches and are now beginning to practise their Winter sports this week, with their first match against Parkdale B next Friday 29^th April at Parkdale.

Congratulations to our Grade 5/6 Girls Kanga Cricket team who qualified for the FINALS round against Parkdale today. Well done to Camryn, Artemis, Natalia, Mia J, Willow, Shaedyn, Leah A, Hayley S AND a big thank you to Ella Mah, Ella Mig & Amy B for stepping up and playing in our team today. Fantastic effort to be the 2016 runners up!!!!

A HUGE THANK YOU also goes to Shane Price and Bruce Allen who have begun their Running Group on Thursday mornings. These two parents continue to offer extra sessions and from the turn out this week, it is a huge success!

Just a reminder about the Sporting Schools Programs. With most beginning next week. Please check below for the sports details:

SPORTS:	GRADES:	STUDENTS #:	DAYS:	DATES:
AFL	P-2	15 (min)	Monday	May 16/5, 23/5, 30/5 & June 6/6
	G3-6			WEEK 6 BEGIN*
Basketball	P-2	20 (min)	Wednesdays	April 27th, May 4th, 11th & 18th
	G3-6			WEEK 3 BEGIN*
Soccer	P-2	15(max)	Thursdays	April 28th, May 5th, 12th & 19th
	G3-6	15(max)		WEEK 3 BEGIN*
Netball	P-2	15-30(max)	FRIDAYS	29 April, 6, 12, 20 May
Golf	G3-6	15 (max)	TUESDAYS	April 26th, May 3rd, 10th & 17th
				WEEK 3 BEGIN*
Table Tennis	G2-6	15-20 (max)	FRIDAYS	April 29th, May 6th, 13th & 20th
				WEEK 3 BEGIN*

SPOTS ARE STILL AVAILABLE FOR ALL SPORTS – ****GOLF may not run if we cannot get at least 10 students**

Thank you to Holly Fuda from the Storm NRL for coming to our school and running a Wellbeing Presentation to our Grade 3-6 students. All the students thoroughly enjoyed it and it was fantastic to see everyone engaged and actively participating in the trivia questions!


HAVE A GREAT WEEK SUPER STARS!!!                                     

MISS. L J

Specialist Newsletter

Specialist Newsletter

ART ROOM ADVENTURES!
All students from Prep to Year 6 have been creating some wonderful art pieces this term. Our grade 3/4’s have been learning about Mexican/Aztec culture, creating Sun Stone images and Amate bark paintings. The gorgeous Prep students have been making some wonderful self-portraits and ink and crayon underwater images. Grade 2 students have been examining shadows, while Grade 1 students created some beautiful Rainbow Fish. Our seniors have been furthering their skills of colour mixing and created some unique guitar designs with woven backgrounds.

Mrs Searles

Physical Education

Firstly congratulations to all of our Grade 3-6 students who competed in our Swimming programs this Term. From House Swimming carnival in February to Division Swimming this week, all students showed fantastic sportsmanship and competed at a very high level.

District Swimming at Noble Park we saw our students compete through extreme heat and again display the most amazing sportsmanship and teamwork towards their fellow peers. There were records broken and 3 students getting through to the next round at Division Swimming: Shaedyn A, Josh A & Nat P.

Not only did we come home with 3rd overall, but 1st in handicap. These results are just an example of how well our students competed and through teamwork came home with the win.

Division this week we saw Shaedyn, Josh and Nat compete with some amazing results. Shaedyn came 3rd in 50m Breaststroke and 5th in 50m Butterfly, Josh came 3rd in 50m Backstroke and Nat came 4th in 50m Breaststroke. Fantastic results for all 3 students. To all of our swimmers I am very proud of your efforts!!!

As the term comes to an end next week I just want to congratulate each and every student for an amazing effort in P.E. with our Prep - Grade 2's exploring movement with various equipment and our Grade 3-6 students setting high expectations as they work through their fitness challenges.

Congratulations to our Grade 5/6 students for a great start to their Interschool Summer Sports season with only one more match to go against St Brigids before our finals round next term.


Well done everyone and I look forward to another exciting Term 2 at MPPS!

Miss L :)

Library News

We have been very busy in the library already this year.

With new books arriving weekly, we have been kept on our toes cataloguing and popping out the new stock for the students. Keep a close eye out for these new titles.

Please remember to bring in a library bag each week to take your library books home in. This protects our resources from accidental spills from drink bottles or leaking lunch boxes.

Italian!

Italian Day will be coming up soon on Tuesday 17th May when the whole school celebrates Italy and the contributions made by the Italian people. Time to begin thinking of what to wear-keep it simple- Roman Gods/Goddesses, chefs, artists, Italian food, Pinocchio, Geppetto etc. Please keep costumes simple. Lots of fun in the morning followed by an Italian Concert Performance of 'Tasty Tunes' in the hall. PFA has kindly also offered to provide a pizza and gelato lunch on the day. More details will be available early in Term 2. Grazie to all my little Pinocchios and Pinocchias (boys and girls) for a very hard working Term 1.

Signora Beer

Performing Arts

What a fantastic start to the year we’ve had in Performing Arts! I have enjoyed every minute of working with our wonderful students and sharing my excitement for Performing Arts and Music!

This term the Junior School (Prep, 1 and 2) have investigated high and low sounds, long and short sounds and have played lots of different instruments, some more successfully than others.

The Middle School (Grades 3 and 4) have been learning to play Hot Cross Buns and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with a variety of instruments and have made their own musical arrangements - In small groups the students have chosen which instruments will play which parts of the song.

The Senior School (Grades 5 and 6) have been learning note names, playing simple songs by reading the notes and beginning to notate their own rhythms.

Next term we will be focussing on Dance - in preparation for our bi-annual School Production. There will be lots and lots of information to follow in the next two terms, but for now I’m going to let you be ’curious’ about our Production theme.

Thankyou for making me feel so welcome - please say Hi as you walk down the corridor if you see me :)


Mrs Cheers!

THIS TERM IN ITALIAN

Ciao a tutti! Here is just a little taste of what students are having fun learning this Term in Italian- Italiano.

Prep - will be singing lots of Italian songs such as; ‘Ciao, Buongiorno’ and Dieci Spaghetti, making a ‘Mi chiamo..’ (My name is…) paper hat, learning the Italian numbers 1-10 and listening attentively to Italian stories such as ‘Questa sono io’-(This is me) and ‘La Mia Famiglia’-(My family). The learning focus will about ‘Me and my Family’ and feeling confident using simple Italian Greetings.

Grades 1 & 2 – will be decorating their front pages with Italian illustrations and revising previous vocabulary about ‘Io’ (Me) - before beginning a magical journey meeting up with ‘MUZZY’-a giant, friendly, metal-eating alien who has landed on Earth. Mamma Mia!!

Grades 3 & 4- will be writing Personal Portraits –‘Sono Io’-which include information (in Italian and English) about themselves and their families. Then they will be learning about ‘La Mia Casa’-My Home. This will include designing and labelling the various rooms and parts of a house as well as the many different types of homes there are-(caravans, tents, castles, igloos, burrows, cages and nests).

Grades 5 & 6 – will be exploring the amazing Geography of ’L‘Italia’-Italy- and learning the names for natural features (rivers, mountains, lakes, seas and volcanoes) and famous Italian Landmarks such as The Leaning Tower of Pisa, Pompeii and the incredible Coliseum. They will also be creating mosaic book covers using a map of Italy and their artistic skills.

A prego,

Signora Beer.

Italian Day Update. WOW What a Day!

What a wonderful, fun-filled, exciting day for our Italian Day! Despite the rainy weather, students wore costumes that were simply amazing and everyone had a lovely time. A huge THANK YOU to all our incredibly hard working teachers (class and Specialists) who organised a wide variety of Pinocchio, Italian food, stamps, post cards, soccer, pasta, painting, mosaics, construction, games or Maths inspired Rotational activities, despite being busy with their reports, excursions and testing. I appreciate their involvement and imagination. Bravo!

Another HUGE thank you must go to Cheryl Nancarrow and her team of helpers who gave up lots of their time to deliver student pizza and gelato orders. The delivery went like clockwork. Thank you P.F.A! Of course, these lunches could not have been delivered without the continued and wonderful support of Maro’s Pizza Shop. Please thank them by supporting their business when your family want to eat delicious pizzas. They offer an incredible range of mouth-watering pizza varieties!

Thank you to Anne and Lisa (for sorting and handling all financial details) and Gail and Jennifer for helping during the Rotations. Thank you to the Level 4 staff who helped with the Video technology. Much appreciated. The photo gallery was supplied by our keen photographer, Miss Smith. Grazie.

I want to also thank every parent, grandparent, aunt or uncle, for the effort put into the costumes. We had some amazingly creative costumes-Blue Fairies, Gods and Goddesses, Roman soldiers, Pinocchios, Mario Brothers, Chefs, Sports People, Pizzas, artists, Rocky Balboa and so much more! Please take the time to view some of these creations on our display areas. There are still more photos awaiting printing.

Lastly, I want to thank our students. They were generally so well behaved and involved the whole day. You made me so proud-especially the Grade 6 students who were so diligent when looking after their Buddies. From everyone’s smiles and comments, Italian Day 2015, will be one to remember.

Grazie a tutti! Thank you everyone!

Signora Beer (alias Arlecchino)

   ATTENZIONE!  ATTENTION!    Italian Day is coming soon!!

For those new to Mentone Park, Italian Day is a whole day celebration of all things Italian!

   This year it will be on Tuesday 19^th of May and all children will have the opportunity to move through three different Italian- inspired activities in multi-age groups. Younger children will be teamed with Buddies or older students. These Rotations will continue until an early lunchtime when children will be able to enjoy a pizza and gelato (or their own lunch).

After lunch, the whole school will be watching a comical viewing of Walt Disney’s ‘Pinocchio.’ There will not be any parade as children will be starting Rotation 1 as soon as the class Attendance Rolls are called.

   Children are encouraged and expected to come dressed for the day. Some costume suggestions are:

Pinocchio, the cricket.  Blue Fairy, Ancient Roman citizens, Roman Gods/Goddesses, Italian personalities, singers, chefs, actors/actresses, Sports Stars, etc.

If families find this difficult, children can wear Italian colours (Green, White & Red).  Our teachers will also be dressed to impress! Please don’t buy expensive costumes, just utilise things you have at home (scarves, necklaces, bangles, foil, cardboard etc).

Children will be required to wear sensible footwear and bring their playlunch on the day.

Our ‘P.F.A’ will be sending out information with regard to Pizza and Gelato orders very soon, so keep an eye out for the form. I would really like to again thank the P.F.A for their ongoing and generous support. Without their help the Pizza Lunch would not be happening. Molte Grazie.

Any queries? I am in the LOTE room Tuesday-Thursday.

A prego,  Signora Beer      

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