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What? This week on campus we explored the elements of Visual Arts by creating an ocean. As a whole class, we discussed how we can create a painting of the ocean utilising just black, blue, and white paint. My other group member and I discussed how when the light hits the water, the effect it has on the colour of the ocean and how we could display this in our artwork. We also discussed how many shades of blue and green we could make by just utilising those three colours.

So What? Through this art activity, I had to allow myself to trust the process and just let my artwork be what it wanted to be. As a person who doesn’t find myself to be a creative person, I did enjoy the experience of being in the moment and using what I knew about the ocean and trying to portray this through my artwork.

Now What? If I was to have the students conduct this activity in the classroom, I would allow students to utilise different types of materials such as pencils, pens, cardboard, and crate paper. Students may like to incorporate those different materials to represent waves on different levels or different colouring in the ocean. This would be a creative activity for the students to almost represent an ombre wall in the classroom.

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Week 2 - Using recycled materials to create artworks. 

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Week 2 - Using recycled materials to create artworks. 

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What? On campus this week we explored and discussed the elements of Visual Arts through recycled materials. On campus, we created sea creatures from recycled materials. I created a sea turtle made from paper and plastic.

So what? I thoroughly enjoyed sifting through the materials to create our sea creatures. It allowed me to use my imagination in how I can use different materials to represent the animals. The green paper I cut out to represent the body of the turtle, I used pink pompoms to represent the eyes, and I cut up an old egg carton to demonstrate how a turtle can mistake rubbish for food and how it can end up stuck on them. In pairs we then discussed how using recycled materials and rubbish can reduce our waste but also demonstrates the amount of waste that ends up in our ocean and can kill animals.

Now what? Next week as a class we are going to create a stop motion which delves into Media arts. We will utilise the entire class’s creations from this week activity and create a story of how rubbish is affecting our oceans and what we can do to save it.

Overall, I found this activity to be a very engaging and hands-on activity that allowed peer discussions while also integrating the arts. I look forward to integrating this activity into my classroom as it allows students to use their creative brains with what materials they could use and how they use them.

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What? This week on campus we utilised our knowledge from last week and as a group we created a stop motion video. We incorporated everyone’s sea creatures and paintings from last week to continue addressing the issue of sustainability.

So what? The stop motion demonstrated the turtle swimming around in a healthy sea and then it progressed to nibbling on plastic that then got stuck around its neck and unfortunately, ended up dying due to the pollution in our ocean. I enjoyed this topic that we did as a class, however, I have learnt I need to build on my stop motion skills if I were to incorporate this activity into the classroom.

Now what? This activity allowed us to build on our knowledge, discuss real-world issues, the incorporation of media arts into the curriculum and how media arts could also be incorporated into other areas of the curriculum.

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What? This week on campus we created an abstract art piece by listening to an instrumental music piece. We needed to incorporate the elements of line to match the rhythm of the music. After we had created our first artwork piece we then needed to replicate it utilising paint.

So what? I found this to be a quite a calming art activity as I closed my eyes and just let the music and texter complete the art piece. I also enjoyed the incorporation of the two arts elements, visual art, and music and then how our artwork represented the musical element. I did find however, when needing to replicate our art piece with paint became a tricky activity as I wasn’t exactly sure where I started or in which directions my lines were going in the first drawing.

Now what? This activity is a great activity to have in our tool belt as it allows the students to express themselves artistically with their own flair and having students close their eyes while completing it will stop students looking onto each other’s and trying to outdo each other.

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What? This week on campus we looked at the elements of dance and how we can communicate our ideas, perspective or meaning through it. As a class we looked at the life cycle of a spider and how they use their body to create a web. As a group we created a sequence of movements in a circle while all holding onto yarn to try and create our own web.

So what? I enjoyed looking at the incorporation of a science topic and how you can incorporate dance to make the lesson more enjoyable for students. I was quite surprised how well our web turned out considering we didn’t discuss a lot of our movements before we began the activity. Overall, it provided me with a new perspective of how you can really integrate The Arts into other areas of the curriculum.

Now What? I personally think because this topic is incorporating a science topic it would allow students to become more involved in the lesson when creating a series of movements and they would be less embarrassed to perform it in front of their peers.

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What? This week on campus we looked at both curriculum areas English and Music, more specifically poetry. We discussed how poetry shapes meaning and how can we incorporate the element of music to portray poetry.

So What? As a whole class we looked at Quandamooka First Nations and we then created and shaped our own copulates. This collaborative approach allows people to showcase their skills on the different instruments to accompany the writing we did. I did personally find this task a little tricky as I wanted to ensure I was respecting our First Nations culture but also allowing myself to be creative in the lesson.

Now What? I think this learning experience is a great learning curve and I think it is a great way to introduce our First Nations culture to young students whilst also ensuring our learning is reflected in the curriculum.

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What? This week on campus we looked at the element of drama and how we can incorporate the English curriculum mainly focussing on the world topic of social media. As a whole class, we discussed how we can use freeze frames to recreate scenes in several different ways and then build on how you can elevate your freeze frames through your body and facial expressions.

So what? This was another great learning experience as we took a real-world issue that students would relate to but also create an art piece to portray this. I think students could involve themselves in this topic as they would each be looking at it through a different lens, which would create interesting freeze frames and topics of discussion.

Now what? This topic is a great lesson or sequence of lessons that can be integrated into the classroom, and I enjoyed that I was able to think of different topics that could be discussed and created through freeze frames such as floods and fires that are appropriate to different year levels.