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The Arts in the New Zealand Curriculum

Choose your year band for its strands and lesson ideas.

By year band

Strands

  • DanceYears 0–10
  • DramaYears 0–10
  • MusicYears 0–10
  • Visual ArtsYears 0–10

Lesson and unit ideas

  • LessonYears 0–3

    Body percussion rhythms

    Echo, then create, short rhythm patterns using claps, stamps and clicks.

  • UnitYears 4–6

    Group dance about the water cycle

    Explore movement for evaporation, clouds and rain, then use repetition and canon to shape a group dance.

  • UnitYears 7–8

    Devised drama on a community issue

    Develop characters and scenes from a local issue, rehearse, perform and reflect on audience response.

  • UnitYears 9–10

    Portrait drawing and tone

    Practise proportion and tonal shading from observation, building to a finished self-portrait.

  • UnitYears 11–13

    A painting series that responds to place

    Study how Colin McCahon painted the New Zealand landscape, then develop a series of works on a local place through drawing, trialling and refining ideas.

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