The Caribbean children's song Four White Horses not only includes lyrics to learn, but also complex hand movements. The whole school is learning the song in Music class, as well as the accompanying hand phrasing, which can be very challenging. 
JK to Grade 1 students do a simplified version of the movements as they sing. Grades 2 to 6 are working in groups of four and each time they sing, they go a little bit faster. "It takes practice," says Ian with a smile. "And perseverance."
All the grades are composing short rhythmic songs based on events happening in the school. Pirate Day and the Mabin BBQ were hot topics and inspired the students to come up with new songs using chants, body percussion and instruments such as the boom whackers and shakers. As they get older, the songs grow in sophistication level, meaning more parts and greater rhythmic complexity.
Grades 3 & 4 and 5 & 6 are joining together each week to form 40 voice singing groups, practicing two part harmony and singing fundamentals such as how best to stand and produce a good sound.
Moving to music is a focus for JK to Grade 1, using actions to interpret elements such as high notes or slow passages in the music they hear.
Grades 3 - 6 are studying Music History, currently examining the works and life of the composer Rossini.
In Gym, the Kindergarten classes have had an introduction to the gym space and routines. 
The focus in these early weeks is on start and stop signals as well as safety, respect and responsibility. There is a wide variety of gym equipment available for them to explore and they have begun a "travelling" curriculum strand which involves walking, running, hopping, skipping, jumping, galloping and side sliding.
For Grades 1 to 6, the focus is on 100% participation and participation for fun. The classes are engaged in active, large group games that encourage cooperation, teamwork, leadership and full participation. Physical challenges include the "Birthday bench" where a whole class climbs up on two benches and work together to help everyone in the group switch places and line up in order of birth dates—all without touching the floor! Gym portfolios begin in October.
Grade 5 stepped up to organize and facilitate games for the Mabin BBQ, part of Health and Character Education. The process entailed full class participation in the organization, scheduling, set up, facilitation, tidy up and reflection. Students in Grades 5 and 6 have also signed on to be Playground Mediators, developing their skills in conflict resolution and practicing their first aid training.
Gestures remain a vital part of the French program and a great way to improve a student's vocabulary. A review of gestures and the introduction of new ones continues for all grades. "The object is not go through your whole life gesturing while you speak French," explains Dalia. "The gestures are simply a tool to facilitate language acquisition. And it encourages the students to think in French as well."
Mimi the French puppet is a central character in JK and SK French. As Mimi only speaks French herself, the students are inspired to interact with her a la français, expanding their vocabulary as they share greetings and new sayings. The students are also developing their core gesture vocabulary of action words. Says Ian, "We're having a whale of a time practicing doing the words we gesture such as marche, court, saute, tombe and of course, ooh-la-la!" To consolidate those gestures, each student is posing for a picture doing a particular French gesture, which Ian has hung on the wall for quick reference. Also important is a regular mix of songs and games such as Ou Et Pingu? which promotes regular practice of gestures.
Learning how to put words together to form sentences in French is the focus for Grade 1. The story Dalia has started with the class is Ma Poule MaBoule. The students are reading it, gesturing to it and retelling the story themselves using puppets. Every class has French raps to start off the day and Grade 1 loves to sing Bonjour, Mes Amis.
Grade 2 has reviewed the vocabulary from previous years. "I'm always amazed at how much they remember," says Dalia. "Gestures are great for that." The students are learning new songs such as Bonjour, La Classes Commence Maintenant which they love to dance to. The play for this grade is Les Trois Petits Cochons. They are reading the story and learning the vocabulary and gestures for it with plans for a performance later.
Grade 3 is doing Boucles Violettes et les Trois Ours, learning the story, gestures and vocabulary. To learn their French numbers, the class plays a "count up" game with a beach ball. Each time someone catches it, they count aloud in French, going as high as they can before someone lets the ball hit the floor. The class is reviewing old songs and looking forward to some spooky Halloween singing.
The Grade 4's are avid singers and will ask in French for the songs they love to sing, complete with gestures. Songs such as L'Alphabet, Comment Ça Va? and Qui A Peur Du Méchant Loup are favourites. The class is completing a review of their developed vocabulary and started in on the story Comment y aller?, learning the new vocabulary and gestures. They also role play the story using their own words and have resurrected the much loved game Tornade.
Grade 5 is into the story of Louis La Grenouille. The students are working in partners as they retell the tale in their own words, using their extensive vocabulary from the past. They too love to sing and a favourite is Poutine, a bilingual song. Another class favourite is Pousse/Attrappe, a fast paced opposites game.
Grade 6 is doing the story of Chat Angora. "The class just absorbs everything," says Dalia. "They're little French sponges and have already covered much ground." The students are very excited to be speaking in French with ease. They love the song Étienne for learning grammar and verbs. Oh, and if you hear disco tunes coming from the French room, it's just the 6's learning expressions of "avoir." They have learned to conjugate the irregular verb "avoir" plus they've reviewed the regular "er" verbs (parler, chanter, danse, etc.). Also mastered are prepositions and verbs that are followed by an infinitive. Another favourite is the game Question et Résponse, a fast paced game where the students pass around two rubber chickens aptly named Question and Response. When the music stops, whoever has Question asks a question in French. Whoever holds Response must respond. All of this is great practice for forming questions in French and using the basic question words.
For many of the Senior Kindergarten artists, Art class marks a return to a space where they already feel very comfortable. For our new Junior Kindergarten and SK students, these first few weeks are about becoming familiar and comfortable in the art studio space and with the many materials inside.
Both classes began their year digging into our ever popular clay. Working with the clay allows the students to warm up their ideas and hands with a responsive and flexible medium. A clay shape that was first a cookie making factory can instantly transform into a fairy playground when nearby peers invite collaboration. These active sessions are a wonderful way to begin the year and accurately illustrate the social nature of our primary Art program.
Both classes have now moved on to covering painting routines. Reading Ellen Stohl Walsh's book Mouse Paint provided an introduction into mixing colours using only the primary colours—red, yellow and blue. The artists are returning to these first paintings to add further flourishes with pastels, markers, collage pieces, stickers, and paint dabbers. Also this year has been an outside chalking and drawing session and a shape identification/ colourful floor painting session. A sculpture project is on the horizon.
The Grade 1's are also re-familiarizing themselves with the Art Room routines and expectations. Clay was the inviting focus for the first session and sparked many wonderful collaborations. The Grade 1's have currently been taking lines for a walk all around a page! The artists discovered that walking the lines created interesting white spaces in between, a natural introduction to positive and negative space. They mixed up exciting batches of colours to fill these spaces and are returning for a second session. The artists have come up with ways to create paper people and have been excitedly decorating them. Up next, they will tap further into this curiosity with a mixed media cardboard person sculpture—a la Picasso!
The Grade 2's started the year off thinking about and working with the straight lines. They have considered the straight line in many ways—thick/thin, tall/short, light/dark, diagonal/horizontal/vertical, repeated and or in a pattern to name just a few. The artists began their straight line exploration using India Ink, then moved on to colourful paper collages and then incorporated masking tape and paint to create very Mondrian inspired paintings. Currently, they are about to embark on a sculptural weaving tentest project using yarn.
Grade 3 began the year challenged to discover what "paper could do." Small, medium and large strips of coloured paper were used to create slip and slide paper sculptures. The artists created with height, stability and balance in mind and discovered that paper could fold, bend, twist, twirl and loop. Gold and silver markers as well as permanent markers were available as an option to add details. Next up, the students were challenged to use their previous knowledge from the paper sculptures and think big as they collaboratively created “Paper can...” mobiles. Each small team negotiated to come up with a collaborative design as they worked with bristol board strips, staplers, and hole punches. The bright and expressive mobiles are brightening the studio space ceiling. Connecting with the classroom interest in magnetics, next the class will embark on creating magnetic sculptures.
The Grade 4's have just completed a paper trees project of mixed media collage (pastel, oil and chalk, paper and marker). The focus was on filling background space and then collaging a paper tree overtop using a taught technique.
After collecting twigs outside, the students brought their found nature objects back to the Art room to design a sculpture with an aim to create height and interesting negative spaces. Skills included tying and knotting twine to hold twigs in place and figuring out how to achieve balance and stability with their sculptures and structures. The project also expanded their notion of what constitutes art materials.
Visualizing the summer skies of their vacations, Grade 5 just completed mixed media sky paintings consisting of paint and paper collage with chalk pastel and marker detail. The project consisted of a review of background, foreground and horizon line. The students experimented with blending techniques using paint and pastel to create an effect and also explored overlapping shapes to create depth. Currently, the class is creating tessellation flags, based on studies begun last year. The students are tessellating shapes they designed and traced onto fabric, filling them in with dye and then tracing with gold, silver or black marker. Their goal is to then string these flags together to hang in the classroom. As a group, they have started to problem solve how best to do this. This project aims to connect math with art and introduces the use of new materials. Upcoming are some Calder inspired stabiles and then portraits.
To encourage more sketching, the Grade 6's have been given sketchbooks this year to keep as a portfolio in which all sketches, project plans, photographs and reflections will be put into. This format of documentation allows them to view their personal growth and artistic process and prepares them for expectations in Grade 7
The students are in the process of finishing a personal identity collage. Created from coloured paper and magazines, the students used symbols, shapes and colours to represent self. Discussion ensued about how artists put themselves into their creation, through their material choices and personal expression. To create a collective identity as Mabin Grade 6's, the students discovered that a frame (Japanese screen) could be used to bring all the pieces together. This project aims to have them think about themselves and share their ideas visually through the materials, either abstractly or representational while focussing on certain principles of design such as colour, shape, texture, line, and balance, dominance and harmony.
Upcoming for this class is nature sketching and collages created from found natural materials which will preempt Goldsworthy inspired outdoor nature sculptures.
