Grade 1/2 Term 2 Newsletter
Important Dates:
Monday 9th May - Professor Bunsen Light & Sound Incursion
Monday 9th May - Cross Country Afternoon (G1/2)
Friday, 13th May - Warrandyte Mini Hoops (Grade 2)
Monday 23rd- Friday 27th May - Education Week
Wednesday 25th May - Education Week Open Afternoon 4:45pm-5:30pm
Monday 13th June - Queen’s Birthday (no school)
Tuesday 14th June - Curriculum Day (pupil-free day)
Wednesday 22nd June - Reports sent out digitally
Friday 24th June - 2:30pm finish
Reader’s Workshop:
In Reader’s Workshop, there will be a big focus on reading non-fiction texts and learning about their features (e.g. contents page, glossary, captions, subheadings). Students will be learning the difference between facts and opinions and will be practising their comprehension skills by answering literal and inferential questions about texts they are reading. They will also be learning the structure of procedural texts, which ties in well with our Science unit.
Writer’s Workshop:
This term in Writer’s Workshop, students will be learning two different genres - Information texts and Procedural texts. They will be concentrating on the structure, language and purpose of each text. Students will practise writing Information texts and Procedural texts on different topics. They will ensure that their texts are structured in the correct order and include the important information (eg. title, contents page, headings and subheadings for Information texts and title, aim, materials and method for Procedural texts).
Maths:
In Maths, we will continue to include a 5-minute warm-up at the start of our lessons. These warm-ups are designed to engage students and help with a quick recall of number facts.
Students will be learning a range of strategies to help solve addition and subtraction problems.They will explore number lines and hundreds of charts to assist them. Students will be learning to read time on analogue and digital clocks to the half hour (Grade 1) and to the quarter hour (Grade 2). As part of our time unit, students will also revise durations of time, seasons, months and calendars. Later this term there will be a focus on length, mass and capacity.
Inquiry: ‘Look, Listen!’
This term our Inquiry topic has a science focus and will be called, ‘Look, Listen!’ Students will focus on how light and sound surrounds us, how we use light and sound to communicate with each other and how light and sound affect what we think, do and how we feel. We will be welcoming Professor Bunsen back to our school on Monday 9th May for an exciting incursion. An event has gone out on Compass and permission & payment for this event can be done online.
*Just a reminder that all incursions/excursions are now a ‘user-pay’ basis, so if you do not pay for this prior to the session, your child will unfortunately miss out.
Gardening:
We are pleased to say that we are kicking off our Friday Gardening program with Grade 1 and 2 students this term. Each week one class will be in the “Children’s garden” planting or weeding whilst the other 2 classes will complete paper or nature based tasks based on our key learning intentions “What a plant needs to grow?” and “Parts of a plant”.
Homework:
Students in Grade 1 will continue to practise reading their Magic Words until they have mastered them. Those that have mastered them will move onto SMART Spelling for homework. Students in Grade 2 will continue to be given a weekly task to be completed on Seesaw. Both grades should be reading for 15 minutes each day and recording this in their Home Reading Journal. Please ensure that your child’s Reader Bags, Journals and Magic Words Books (where applicable) are at school daily.
Student Learning Diaries:
This year, instead of having a paper-based Student Learning Diary, students will be completing tasks and uploading them to Seesaw for you to see as they are completed, rather than waiting until the end of term. Please feel free to leave a comment on your child’s work as they complete a task.
