What’s Happening in Visual Arts in Term 2 2026
FOUNDATION:
In Term 2, Foundation students will continue to explore organisational processes in Art and how to work safely with various equipment and materials. They will draw connections between art and the natural world throughout the term, using found materials in nature to create crayon rubbing artworks that reveal nature’s intricate details and line work. The students will also learn about the important role sharks play in keeping our oceans healthy, blending watercolour paint to create an ocean background before adding a collage shark on top. Lastly, the students will continue to develop their fine motor skills by threading beads and recycled materials onto wire and practising the concepts of symmetry and balance to create their own balancing sculptures.
GRADE 1:
In Term 2, Grade 1 students will continue to learn how to safely engage in a range of activities, using a variety of tools in the art room. Throughout the term, the students will explore the impact of plastic on our world’s animals, both on land and in our oceans. Using commonly disposed plastic waste such as bottle caps and pen lids, they will create underwater creature artworks with an ocean background made from painted paper collage. Then, the students will experiment with sculptural forms, creating a clay pinch pot that will be fired before a glaze topcoat is applied. They will also be introduced to the fun and engaging process of wet felting to create a wet-felted pet rock, using agitation and layering to interlock the wool fibres.
GRADE 2:
In Term 2, Grade 2 students will explore the important role that bees play in our world. They will create hand-built clay beehives, utilising the skills of coiling and joining using the ‘score and slip’ method. Once the clay beehives have been fired, they will use underglaze to add colour to their pieces before applying a gloss top glaze. The students will also create a mixed media bee artwork, including the processes of collage, printmaking and drawing. During the term, they will also develop their skills in mixing their own colours to create a colour wheel, using primary colours to create secondary and tertiary colours.
GRADE 3:
In Term 2, Grade 3 students will learn basic sewing techniques to create a textile artwork on a piece of hessian. They will combine painting with a basic running stitch and overstitch to add interest to their pieces. The students will also complete an artwork that showcases the process of paper collage, layering pieces of tissue and patterned paper on top of one another to create a bright and colourful background. They will then use scientific drawings of bugs and beetles to trace onto a piece of acetate, forming a detailed overlay for their finished pieces. Lastly, the students will develop their skills in mixing their own colours to create a colour wheel, focusing on analogous colours.
GRADE 4:
In Term 2, Grade 4 students will complete a lengthy unit on clay inspired by the mushroom artworks of Yayoi Kusama. They will explore many techniques, such as rolling, to create a cylindrical structure from a slab-rolled piece of clay. The students will revisit how to create a pinch pot to form the top of their mushroom and will understand the importance of using the score, slip and smooth method to securely connect the two clay pieces together. The students will paint their clay mushrooms with glow paints to use in this year’s glow gallery for the Art Show. Finally, they will study Aboriginal aerial map artworks and use bird’s-eye photos of Melbourne and surrounding areas to create their own aerial map artworks, utilising colour, pattern and symbols to express their ideas about local places.
GRADE 5:
In Term 2, Grade 5 students will create artworks in recognition of Sorry Day and Reconciliation Week, working in small groups to collectively create thought-provoking pieces that explore this year’s theme, “All In”. The students will create a clay sculpture, using slab rolling, shaping and etching processes to form a textured fish. They will hole-punch their pieces to allow string embellished with recycled plastics to be attached once they have been glazed and fired, demonstrating their understanding of the impact of plastic on our ocean’s fish. The students will then participate in a unit of work that explores a connection to nature by creating brushes from foraged materials, which they will use during the mark-making process. They will then use oil pastels to draw magpies on top of their ink backgrounds.
GRADE 6:
In Term 2, Grade 6 students will use their knowledge of the environmental impacts of bushfires from their Term 1 novel study of the text 47 Degrees to create a powerful dichotomous artwork. They will develop their skills in using materials including graphite pencil, chalk pastel and charcoal to create two separate artworks showcasing the before and after effects of bushfires. The artworks will then be cut into strips and reconstructed to form a concertina structure, changing in appearance depending on the direction from which they are viewed. Finally, the students will use their skills with a range of materials such as watercolour, fineliner and sewing techniques to embellish their painted artworks.