# NSW Stage 1 Creative Arts: Celebration & Connection (Years 1-2, Term 2)

> Plan the NSW Stage 1 Creative Arts Term 2 unit on Celebration & Connection. Dance and Music lesson ideas, syllabus framing, and ready-made resources for Year 1-2.

## NSW Stage 1 Creative Arts: Teaching the Celebration & Connection Unit

In NSW K-6 Creative Arts, Stage 1 (Years 1 and 2) sits in a busy and beautiful place: students are old enough to perform with intent, young enough to take risks without self-consciousness, and right at the age where the four art forms — Dance, Drama, Music, and Visual Arts — start to inform each other in interesting ways. The Term 2 Stage 1 Creative Arts unit, often framed as Celebration and Connection, leans into Dance and Music as the lead art forms, with Drama and Visual Arts woven through as students prepare and perform short, repeatable celebration pieces.

This guide is for Year 1 and 2 teachers planning Stage 1 Creative Arts Unit 2 — typically taught across Term 2 — who want a clear picture of what the unit asks of students, how to structure six to eight weeks without burning out at week three, and where to find classroom-ready Dance and Music resources that align to the current Creative Arts K-6 (2006) syllabus and prepare for the incoming Creative Arts K-6 (2024) syllabus, which becomes mandatory in NSW from 2027.


## Stage 1 Creative Arts — Dance & Music Resources

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### What the Celebration & Connection unit asks of students

NSW primary teachers are currently working from the Creative Arts K-6 (2006) syllabus, with the new Creative Arts K-6 (2024) syllabus due to be mandatory from 2027. Both syllabuses are organised around the same four art forms — Dance, Drama, Music, and Visual Arts — with each art form taught in every stage, so the unit framing in this guide carries across cleanly. Stage 1 Unit 2 typically foregrounds Dance and Music because Term 2 in most NSW primary schools brings a natural cluster of celebration moments: Anzac Day commemorations at the start of term, Mothers Day assemblies, end-of-Term 2 showcases, NAIDOC Week (often celebrated in Term 2 or held over into Term 3), and Reconciliation Week in late May.

In Dance, Stage 1 students develop body awareness, control of locomotor and non-locomotor movement, and the ability to compose and perform short movement sequences alone, with a partner, and in small groups. Connection becomes the binding idea — connection to a stimulus (a story, an Acknowledgement of Country, a piece of music), connection between dancers in shared rhythm, and connection between dancers and an audience.

In Music, Stage 1 students extend the listening, performing, organising sound, and responding work begun in Early Stage 1 (the first year of school in NSW). The Celebration framing gives students a real reason to listen carefully, to compose simple ostinati and patterns, and to perform with a sense of occasion. Most Stage 1 Music programs build steadily on body percussion, untuned percussion, voice, and a small set of tuned instruments such as glockenspiels or boomwhackers.

### Where Unit 2 sits in the Stage 1 Creative Arts year

Most NSW Stage 1 Creative Arts scope-and-sequence documents allocate one art form per term as the lead, with the other three art forms appearing as supporting threads. A common pattern across schools:

- **Term 1** — Visual Arts as lead (Self & Identity)
- **Term 2** — Dance and Music as lead (Celebration & Connection — the unit covered here)
- **Term 3** — Drama as lead (Storytelling)
- **Term 4** — Visual Arts and combined showcase (Performance & Display)

This is not a syllabus mandate — schools are free to sequence the art forms in any order — but it is the most common pattern in published Stage 1 Creative Arts programs and matches the natural calendar of celebrations in the NSW school year.

### A practical six-week teaching sequence

Most Stage 1 Creative Arts units run for six to eight weeks at one to two hours per week. A workable sequence for the Term 2 Celebration & Connection unit:

1. **Frame the celebration** (week 1) — introduce the idea that humans across cultures use dance and music to mark important moments. Show short clips of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander celebration dance, a marching band, a school song from another country, a wedding dance — pick what is appropriate for your community.
2. **Body and voice as instruments** (weeks 1-2) — locomotor and non-locomotor movement warmups, body percussion patterns, vocal warmups. Build a small bank of routines you can return to every Creative Arts lesson for the rest of the year.
3. **Composing in pairs** (weeks 2-3) — students create short movement and sound patterns in response to a stimulus. Keep stimuli concrete — a poem, an image, a piece of music, a felt-tip-pen drawing.
4. **Connecting and combining** (weeks 3-5) — pairs become groups of four; movement and music start to layer. Introduce the idea of an ostinato in Music and a unison-canon-question-answer structure in Dance.
5. **Rehearse with intent** (weeks 5-6) — students refine a short piece for an audience: their own class, the buddy class, a school assembly. Talk explicitly about performance manners, focus, starting, and ending.
6. **Perform and reflect** (week 6+) — perform; then debrief together. What did you notice in your own piece? What did you notice in another group's piece? What would you change next time?

Many Stage 1 teachers integrate the Term 2 Creative Arts unit with HSIE — the [Stage 1 HSIE Connections to People & Places unit](/teacher-guides/stage-1-hsie-connections-people-places) sits naturally alongside Celebration & Connection, since both ask students to think about who we are, whose Country we are on, and how we connect with people elsewhere.

### Teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives in Creative Arts

The Stage 1 Creative Arts syllabus is explicit that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures are a cross-curriculum priority. Some practical principles for Stage 1 Dance and Music:

- Use music and dance created by First Nations artists. Don't only teach about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures; teach with their music, their dance, and their voices.
- Acknowledge Country at the start of every Creative Arts lesson, not only on Reconciliation Week or NAIDOC Week.
- Where appropriate to your school community, invite a local Aboriginal Education Officer or community member to share a song or movement with the class.
- Be honest with students that some songs and dances are restricted and not for sharing outside of community — respecting that boundary is itself a Creative Arts lesson.

For teachers who also teach Stage 1 HSIE, the [HSIE resources for Stage 1 hub](/teacher-guides/hsie-resources-stage-1) collects related Year 1 and Year 2 materials. Teachers running cross-stage planning will find the [NSW Science Design Process Stage 1-3 guide](/teacher-guides/nsw-science-design-process-stage-1-3) useful for the same reason — both Creative Arts and Science place the design and composition process at the centre of student learning. The carousels below pull together teacher-created Stage 1 Creative Arts resources for Dance, Music, and the broader Term 2 unit.

## Stage 1 Dance Lessons & Movement Activities

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## Stage 1 Music — Composition & Performance

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## Frequently Asked Questions

### What year levels are covered in NSW Stage 1 Creative Arts?

Stage 1 in NSW covers Years 1 and 2 — typically children aged six to seven. Stage 1 Creative Arts is the second stage of the K-6 Creative Arts program, sitting between Early Stage 1 (the first year of school) and Stage 2 (Years 3 and 4). NSW Creative Arts K-6 organises learning across four art forms — Dance, Drama, Music, and Visual Arts — and each art form is expected to be taught at every stage, including Stage 1. NSW schools are currently teaching from the Creative Arts K-6 (2006) syllabus, with the new Creative Arts K-6 (2024) syllabus mandatory from 2027.

### What is taught in Stage 1 Creative Arts Unit 2?

Stage 1 Creative Arts Unit 2 — most commonly taught in Term 2 of the NSW school year — typically foregrounds Dance and Music with the binding idea of Celebration and Connection. Students learn to use body movement, body percussion, voice, and untuned and tuned percussion to compose and perform short pieces in response to a celebration stimulus. The unit fits the Term 2 calendar naturally because of Anzac Day, Mothers Day, end-of-term assemblies, Reconciliation Week, and NAIDOC Week celebrations.

### How long should a Stage 1 Creative Arts unit take?

Most NSW primary schools allocate one to two hours per week to Creative Arts at Stage 1, and most published programs run each major unit across roughly six to eight weeks. That is enough time to frame the celebration, build body and voice warm-up routines, compose in pairs, layer up into small groups, rehearse with intent for an audience, and reflect on performance. Stage 1 Creative Arts units integrate naturally with English, HSIE, and PDHPE, which can stretch the practical teaching footprint without adding to the timetable.

### How do I teach Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives in Stage 1 Dance and Music?

The Stage 1 Creative Arts syllabus and the Australian Curriculum cross-curriculum priorities both expect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures to be embedded across the year. Use dance and music created by First Nations artists, acknowledge Country at the start of every Creative Arts lesson, and where appropriate involve a local Aboriginal Education Officer or community member. Be honest with Year 1 and 2 students that some songs and dances are restricted to community — respecting that boundary is itself part of the lesson.

### Where can I find a complete Stage 1 Creative Arts Term 2 program?

The carousels above include teacher-created Stage 1 Creative Arts units that bundle Dance and Music lesson sequences, listening tracks, body percussion patterns, simple notation, and assessment tasks into a single package aligned to NSW Creative Arts K-6 (2006) and forward-compatible with the 2024 syllabus that becomes mandatory in 2027. If you prefer to build the unit from individual components, browse the Dance and Music carousels separately. For broader Stage 1 planning, our [Stage 1 HSIE Connections to People & Places guide](/teacher-guides/stage-1-hsie-connections-people-places) offers a complementary unit that runs in the same Term 2 window.

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