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Important
This page is based on the draft Year 3 content for the Arts, which is currently open for feedback. Schools are not required to implement changes until the consultation process is confirmed.
Have your say:
In Years 1 to 3, children explore the Arts as they learn simple concepts and techniques and discover how elements like colour, rhythm, and movement express ideas. They engage with art forms from New Zealand and around the world through playful, hands-on experiences.
In this phase, arts teaching is structured around 3 strands that focus on key areas of learning. These include:
- Performing Arts: making and creating, observing and responding
- Music: elements of music, listening and responding, performing, including singing, playing instruments, and creating and composing
- Visual Arts: making and creating, observing and responding.
Performing Arts#
Ideas to help at home
With your child, you could:
- play Follow the Leader, using contrasting movements, such as low/high, fast/slow and smooth/still
- have a dance party at home and take turns to copy each other’s dance moves
- view a live or recorded performance and talk about a character that was engaging, and why, for example, how they talked, sang or moved
- take turns playing with interesting voices for different characters in known stories as you read together
- make your own poi, have your child teach you waiata that have poi movements, and then practise or perform them together.
What the teacher will focus on#
The teacher will focus on how meaning can be expressed and interpreted through movement and performance.
For example, by the end of the year, your child may be able to:
- use the elements and techniques of dance or drama to represent people, places, objects or ideas, for example, imitating the paddling of a waka when performing poi
- create a motif (repeated movement) to communicate an idea or feeling, for example, repeated movements to represent an animal
- use both locomotive and non-locomotive movements to create a short movement sequence, for example, jumping and then landing in a star shape
- create contrast in a dance or drama sequence by changing:
- direction, for example, moving forwards, then backwards
- level, for example, creeping low, then stomping high
- tempo, for example, skipping fast, then stomping slow
- energy, for example, light skipping, then heavy creeping
- maintain spatial awareness, awareness of where they are in relation to their surroundings and other objects, and use this awareness to help show relationships between characters or ideas
- use voice, gesture and movement to go into the role of an imagined character
- describe how they or another performer has used motifs, gesture, voice and movement to represent a character or emotion.
Music#
Ideas to help at home
With your child, you could:
- sing songs you enjoy, make up songs about your day, sing lullabies at bedtime, sing school waiata
- clap the rhythm (pattern) of the words in songs and rhymes, for example:
- Rain, rain go a-way
- Tī-ho-re mai te ra-ngi
- play singing and hand-clapping games
- play Follow the Leader by walking, skipping, running, hopping or jumping in time with the beat (steady pulse)
- watch and participate in live performances of singing and instrumental groups, cultural groups and other musicians in the community
- explore sounds made from various materials, such as metal, plastic, and natural materials like wood, plants, bone and rock, and then create music using the found sounds.
What the teacher will focus on#
The teacher will focus on how meaning can be understood and expressed through sound. For example, by the end of the year, your child may be able to:
- do warm-ups and breathing exercises before singing or playing music
- walk, move, or clap to a steady beat with music, changing speed to match the tempo of the music
- use basic notation to read and write simple rhythms and tunes
- identify phrases in music, the musical ‘sentences’ that work like punctuation in language
- respond to a short musical phrase with another phrase in a ‘call and response’ style
- use simple music words, like “pitch” and “tempo”, to talk about music
- group musical instruments into different families with different sounds, for example, woodwind, brass
- understand that different instruments are held and played in different ways
- perform a short kapa haka sequence with singing and actions
- play short melodies in time with a group.
Visual Arts#
Ideas to help at home
With your child, you could:
- explore mixing different combinations of primary colours to make new secondary colours (mix yellow and red to make orange, blue and yellow to make green with, for example, paints, dyes, or pencils)
- view artworks in shared spaces, like a gallery or outdoor sculpture park, wharenui or church and talk about:
- what you notice about the artwork
- whether the artwork reminds you of anything
- whether the artwork makes you wonder about something
- use recycled items or found objects, including items from nature, to create a sculpture.
What the teacher will focus on#
The teacher will focus on how meaning can be explored and communicated through visual art.
For example, by the end of the year, your child may be able to:
- understand that visual artists deliberately organise the elements of their art, like line and colour, to show an idea, feeling or story
- understand that artists organise the elements of an artwork using principles that include:
- layout: using position to show what is important in the artwork and guide the viewer’s eye
- scale: changing the size to show what is important and the distance from the viewer
- mix primary colours to create secondary and complementary colours
- make choices in colour, shape and layout to create the impact they want
- talk about the choices they and others have made to create an artwork, for example:
- the effect of the colours they have chosen
- the person, place or thing that a pattern or symbol represents
- reflect on what they could change to improve an artwork.
