In the final weeks of this term we have had a wonderful time learning about the beautiful folktales of the Philippines and the main religions of the country.
The Philippines are mainly Catholic. Like us in Australia, the Philippines have a diversity of religions but are mainly Catholic. We explored some beautiful Spanish churches and compared them with our own in Australia and found some amazing similarities!
In keeping with our learning “habit of Mind” skill of applying past knowledge, we compared our learning of Vietnamese Buddhist temples with what we now know of the churches in the Philippines.
The senior classes -years 4-6 watched the Philippine folktale- Tung kung Langit and compared it with our own “Creation story” from Genesis in the Bible and the junior classes watched “The First Pineapple” and discussed the origins of folktales and the life lessons they teach- In this lovely folktale the life lesson is to be diligent when doing your chores and to help out Mum and Dad when they are busy! What a great example!
Below are some of the results of our discoveries in the last few weeks!
This fortnight in Cultural Studies we have investigated the variability of art in the Philippines.
A highlight of our learning has been the ability of our students to compare and describe their past knowledge of the beliefs and practises of the countries we have studied, like Thailand and Japan, and confidently comparing them with what we are learning about the Philippines today.I am always impressed with the insightful and thoughtful contributions of our students as this highlights the depth of their learning regarding their cultural understandings.
Year 1,2 & 3 students learnt about and made the beautiful Sarimanok Bird and its symbol of representing good luck in the Philippines.
Our Senior classes, years 4,5 & 6 learnt about the Parol star and its significance at Christmas time. We discussed the comparisons between our Christmas and the Philippino traditions.
Here are some of the beautiful Sarimanok birds made this fortnight.
The markets in the Philippines are full of the beautiful Parol stars from September, which is when the season of goodwill in relation to Christmas begins.
The markets in the Philippines are full of the beautiful Parol stars from September, which is when the season of goodwill in relation to Christmas begins.
Some of the Parols are made from stained glass, Bamboo, paper and a creative variety of materials.
Wow! What a start to the school term! We have started studying the beautiful country of the Philippines and are very fortunate here at St Emilie’s to have many families that are from the Philippines and are happy and willing to share their life experiences, photos and realia from their home country with us this term.
As a school, we begin our learning of every country by asking great questions about what intrigues us about that country. Here the children are discussing some of the questions we would like answered this term about the Philippines.
When discovering the Philippines, we learn where it is in Asia and what countries border it. The Year 1-3 classes have coloured in the many islands of the Philippines, while the year 4-6 classes had a mapping task which explored the 3 main geographical regions of the Philippines-the Visayas,Mindanao and Luzon and the important elements of the national flag.
All classes watched u-tube clips teaching us to greet one another in Filipino. we paid close attention to the speech inflections and accent and we all agreed that the language of the Philippines is very beautiful to listen to! The main words we learnt are: Kumusta- Hello and Paalam-Goodbye
This fortnight in Cultural Studies, we explored the fascinating and ever inspiring topic of food in Vietnam!
As always, our students were engaged and excited to learn about the variety and richness in Vietnamese foods and the regional differences throughout the country.
These are some of the facts we have learnt:
Vietnamese food has two main ingredients- Rice, (which is not only steamed and fried, but also used in flour form to make rice flour rolls, rice cakes and noodles) and fresh vegetables and herbs.
The students were surprised to learn that vietnamese food was also influenced by the French and such dishes as Banh Mi (Vitenamese sandwich) Banh Xeo (sizzling pancake) and snails- escargot are common meals in Vietnam.
We then were able to discuss as a class the similarities and differences between our foods in Australia and Vietnam. One of the points of interest in the discussions was that many of our students with Asian influences, whether that be from their family’s culture, travelling or life experiences shared by their families: found many foods in Vietnam are familiar and cooked and eaten by their families.
Like Australians, Vietnamese food is fried, steamed, barbecued and boiled, but unlike western food, Vietnamese food is usually not baked or roasted, as small open air fires are more common than ovens.
It was lovely to see so many of our students wanting to go to more Vietnamese restaurants, with families emailing pictures of the children’s( and their own!) experiences trying Vietnamese food for the first time through the encouragement of their children!
We also viewed You-Tube clips of Luke Nguyen cooking snails on the Mekong River and saw the hilarious comedian Anh Do eating some exotic foods in Vietnam. ( this caused quite a few giggles!) But more importantly, the children are understanding that because a food is different or unusual, it is important to reserve judgement until they themselves have had a chance to try it. They are becoming more culturally sensitive and are learning that respecting a persons culture, their beliefs and their way of life is important.
This fortnight the students are learning about Indonesian mask art and watched u tube clips about Wayung puppetry.
Javanese and Balinese dances are historically based in epic love stories, classical stories of heroes and monsters, tales of Gods and momentous events, with some stories dating back to the 11th century!
Some Balinese masks are considered sacred and are to be treated with great respect. Many Indonesian masks are used in Dance and Drama performances The word for mask is “Topeng” . These masks are usually made of wood then painted in with colours and designs.
We have made some amazing “Topeng” this fortnight!
Displaying Batik print fabrics and Balinese sarongs to inspire our art.
Indonesian Dance is full of intricate hand and body movements.
Discovering the history and background knowledge of some Balinese masks.
For our final Term this year, we are studying Indonesia!
Its very exciting for many of our students as anyone who has been to Bali has visited Indonesia and many of our families here at St Emilie’s have found Bali to be a great place for a family break.
Indonesia is one of our closest Asian neighbours and important as one of Australia’s trade partners. In turn we are just as influential to Indonesia’s tourism industry.
Here are some highlights of our fortnights learning:
Learning greetings and speaking indonesian to one another.We practised the words”Halo”- which means Hello, and “Sampai Jumpa” which means See you later.
It was a great discovery to the year 1 and 2 classes that Indonesia is made up of many different islands and we found out where Bali is in Indonesia, and that the capital city is Jakarta.
Here we are learning the numbers 1-10 is Indonesian. Our clever year 4-6 classes could read out their phone numbers to partners by the end of the lesson!
This fortnight we are learning about the different foods in China, from Sichuan in the west, Beijing in the north, Fujian in the east, Hunan in Central China and Canton in the south.The children were surprised at the rich variation in the different foods in China!
This brought up some excellent questions from the students and developed the understanding that many differences and variations occur within cultures that are distinctive to their geographical position, their closeness to other countries and that even within cultures, there are distinctions that make us unique!
Discussing the many different types of cooking styles within China!
Teaching each other how to use chopsticks! Some of out students have never used them before!
Games with chopsticks! We became very good at using them!
Our Year one classes read a book about Chinese feasts and customs on New Years Day in China!
Learning about the Great Wall of China, we viewed a U-tube clip on its history and where it is in China and learnt an interesting fact: The Great Wall was built by Emperor Chin, who the country “China” was named after!
This fortnight in Cultural studies, all year levels from year 1-6 have been busy learning about the diversity and beauty of Chinese art, and exploring the legends and significance of dragons, cylinder and ball lanterns, traditional clothes and the history of fans within China.
We are all busy creating our own works of art to consolidate our learning of Chinese art for week 9!
Below is a selection of photos of the design and production process of our students creating china dolls with traditional clothes, decorating Chinese lanterns and creating fans for our open night presentation in years 4-6.
The students have all been surprised at the wealth of knowledge and cultural understandings that can be learnt from studying China’s art history.
In the last two weeks students at St Emilie’s have been exploring Chinese Folktales and traditional art and creative expression.
The Year 1,2 & 3 classes have viewed the you-tube clip animation of the 10 suns and reviewed the story with a rating and recreation drawing of their favourite scene. The year 2 & 3 classes, have written a retell of the story and a review of their favourite aspect of the story.
The year 4,5,& 6 classes have viewed the award winning animation of “The Legend of Shangri-la” and they were asked to write about what distinctive cultural aspects they discovered. They were then invited to describe the feelings and emotions that the incredible art work and creativity the story narration and historical features evoked within them.
Our Year 6 students were able to describe many ways diversity within cultures presents opportunities for new experiences and understandings. Their ability to develop empathy for and describe how the use of words, imagery and colour in interactions could have a variety of meanings for various cultural groups, was a key learning point.
Drawing of the illustrations seen in the animation “the 10 suns”
The year 1,2,&3 children rated their favourite part of the folktale “the ten suns” .
A beautiful scene from the story “The legend of Shangri-La” viewed buy the year 4,5 & 6 classes this week.
One of the descriptive reflections on the learning and cultural understandings explored and discussed from the students point of view when viewing “Shangri-la”
