From the 1/2 Classrooms

Welcome to Term 4! We cannot believe we are entering the last term for the year, we have a busy term ahead and lots of exciting events. We spent week 1 completing our Start Up program, reviewing our learning assets, rights and responsibilities, looking at safety online and we even got to make some fairy bread as part of our introduction to procedural writing. 

Procedural writing- fairy bread making:

The first few weeks in this term will be spent looking at procedural writing in Literacy. Procedural texts tell us how to do/make something. They need a title, materials/equipment, a goal and a method. We looked at the procedure for making fairy bread, and what better way to learn than make some in class! Everyone had a turn at spreading some butter on the bread, dipping their bread into the sprinkles, cutting the bread and of course eating it.

We discussed the importance of verbs in procedural texts as they tell us the action we need to do in each step. Students have been underlining the verbs in their procedural texts to make sure they have included a verb in each step of the method. 

Learning Assets:

One of our learning assets is 'collaborator', we discussed what a collaborator looks, sounds and feels like. Then we had a go at being a collaborator, working with a partner to make a poster on Pic Collage. Students had to ensure they were communicating with their partner, sharing ideas, taking turns using the iPads and compromising when differences in opinions occurred. It was wonderful to see all our students being collaborators working with their partners.

School Values:

We revisited our school values of respect, inclusion, responsibility and care. We had a class discussion of what a value was and what are some values we look for in our friends. Some examples of how our Grade 1/2s show our school values are;

• Celina: Respect for the land by picking up rubbish 
• Envie: Care by not fighting 
• Matilda: Responsibility by taking care of school property 
• Bella: Respect by listening to my teachers
• Hana: Responsibility by helping people if they need help
• Alex L: Respect by listening to my friends when they talk
• Dakota: Inclusion by making sure if you see someone playing by themselves you ask them to join 
• Alicia: Inclusion when someone asks to join in you say yes
• Xu Dong: Care when my friend makes a mistake I talk to him nicely and help him 
• Jaime: Responsibility by taking care of your own materials and making sure others take care of their things 
• Belinda: Inclusion by letting other people join our games 
• Ali: Responsibility by turning off the taps when I'm finished with them 
• Athena: Respect by listening to teachers 
• Zen: Respect the school because it helps me to learn
• Leia: Respect our elderly 

Then we worked with a partner to create a poster on different ways we can show our school values this term in the classroom and playground. Students continued to demonstrate their collaborator skills during this activity!

Rights and responsibilities:

What rights and responsibilities do we have at B.P.P.S? All students have the following rights and responsibilities to ensure everyone has a great day at school.

Students were given a random card which had either a right or responsibility and had to work as a class to find their matching right or responsibility. 

Online safety:

Do you know how to be safe online? Do you know what information we should keep private or is ok to share? Our Year 1/2 students do! We discussed what information and personal details are ok to share publically and what information needs to be kept private and only shared with a trusted adult. Some key reminders are...

• Envie: Don't share your password 
• Bella: Don't share personal information 
• Matilda: Don't share your home address
• Hana: Keep images to yourself  
• Alex L: Keep your phone number to yourself 
• Dakota: Don't share your full name to strangers and do not say your mum and dad's phone number
• Alicia: Don't share your password 
• Belinda: Not giving your ID to strangers 
• Amelia: Don't share your age with unknown people 
• Leia: Don't share your passwords 
• Zen: Ask a grown up for help if something looks like a scam or untrustworthy 
• Ali: Don't give someone you don't know your credit card 

Zones of regulation:

Students explored what our inner critic and inner coach are. Our inner critic comes out when we give ourselves self talk in a negative tone. This is when we need our inner coach to come out and cheer us on and help us through difficult times. Our brain has the power to choose who to listen to. Some responses from students about when we can use our inner coach to cheer us on are;

• Elise: My inner coach helps me when I'm nervous for something 
• Myra: My inner coach helps me when I'm scared 
• Yining: My inner coach helps me use knowledgable books 
• Charlie: My inner coach helps me when I don't spell a word properly 
• Eliza: My inner coach helps me to choose the right things 
• Belinda: My inner coach helps me when I'm feeling unsure 
• Leia: My inner coach helps me when I feel sad and don't think I can do something 

Coming up

Literacy:

• We are continuing to look at procedural texts for the next few weeks, next week we are introducing a new mentor text Wombat Stew, hopefully we won't be trying to make that in class!
• Procedural text activities will continue to be incorporated into reading groups, reading procedural texts on Epic! and making our own

Numeracy:

• Students are revising time and telling time on an analog clock to the hour, half-hour and quarter hour
• We are looking at place value and separating numbers into ones, tens and hundreds using concrete materials such as MAB blocks and tens frames

Reminders:

• Friday 24th we have our Year 1/2 disco, movie and pizza night. Information for this can be found on Compass
• We are looking for volunteers to assist with our swimming program in Week 7, if you're able to help please reach out to your child's classroom teacher

Thank you for reading!

Year 1/2 Teachers