PREPARATORY SCHOOL
Music and Art Collaboration Project
In Term 2 , our Year 5 students took part in an instrument-making workshop with professional musician and instrument maker , Mark Cain .
Mark is a West Australian saxophonist , instrument maker and composer and has written music for dance , theatre , short film and his numerous bands . He has toured internationally with Nova Ensemble and performed in the national Musica Viva schools ’ program for more than two decades . Mark has worked throughout
Australia as a solo performer in schools with Nexus Arts , playing instruments of his own invention from simple , recyclable materials .
The workshops were held over two days and students were given the opportunity to create instruments made from recycled and everyday household materials such as garden hose , irrigation piping , recycled film canisters , balloons and recycled plastic bottles . The instruments they made were called Foo Foo pipes , Panpipes , Bass Foos and Whirly trumpets .
The students had a lot of fun and made at least two instruments each to take home . Well done Year 5 !
“ I found the workshop interesting because we used junk and recycled stuff to make the instruments . The instruments we made were from different places around the world .” – Zac Henderson ( 5M )
“ It was so simple to make the instruments and they can be made out of anything . Mr Cain was really cool and a lot of fun !” – Eli Mellon ( 5M )
Science Club
The after-school Science Club was held in alternate weeks in Terms 1 and 2 and has been a hit with our students from Years 4 to 6 .
Some of the activities have been separating mixtures of chemicals , making an indicator solution from red cabbage to test on various household chemicals , and investigating burning candles in different sized containers .
One activity involved the group designing and building freestanding paper towers with the aim of holding a macadamia nut as high as possible from the lab bench surface for 15 seconds . The brief allowed minimal equipment - three pieces of paper , four toothpicks , a pair of scissors and a macadamia nut . Our young scientists came up with some very creative solutions to the problem .
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