Grade 1 Community News

Dear Grade 1 Families, 

We can’t believe we are already coming to the end of Term 3! It has been wonderful to see the students’ confidence, independence and enthusiasm for learning continue to grow throughout the term. We are so proud of their efforts and look forward to making the most of the remaining weeks together.

We had a very exciting Week 7!! Our Sealife Excursion AND Book Week! Our Grade 1 students had a fantastic day exploring SEA LIFE Melbourne! They enjoyed discovering a range of amazing sea creatures, including jellyfish, crocodiles, leopard sharks, swordfish and turtles. The highlight for many students was touching starfish and learning more about the incredible animals that live in our oceans. It was a fun, memorable day filled with lots of excitement, curiosity and learning!

Book Day was a wonderful celebration of our love of reading! The children had so much fun dressing up as their favourite characters and sharing their fantastic costumes with their friends. They enjoyed completing a Book Day scavenger hunt, exploring books together and listening to lots of wonderful stories throughout the day. It was a fun-filled day celebrating the joy and magic of books!

InitiaLit

In InitiaLit, students have been building on their early reading and focusing on the double-letter rule using f, l, s and ck as in bell, miss, stuff and neck. They learnt how to identify when double letters will need to be used at the end of a word, known as the FLoSS and Zack rule.

InitiaLit - Tricky Words: kind, find, thought

How you can support at home:

• Read for a few minutes each night and ask your child to spot words with our focus sounds ss, ff, ll, ck 
• Practice tricky words by writing them on paper, saying them aloud, or using them in a sentence.

Storybook & Vocabulary

This fortnight we have been reading the text The Day the Crayon’s Quit by Drew Daywalt.

It is a funny picture book about a boy named Duncan who opens his crayon box and finds letters from his crayons saying they are on strike. Each colour explains its unique frustration and refuses to work.

We have been focusing on 3 vocabulary words from our story below and have been using them in our writing and daily language. 

Writing

In Writing, the students have been busy becoming authors! They have been creating their own narratives and learning about the different stages of the writing process. From planning and drafting their ideas to revising, editing, and finally publishing their finished stories, the students have worked hard to develop their characters, settings, and exciting storylines. We are so proud of the creativity and effort they have shown throughout the process!

How you can support at home:

• Read stories together and talk about the characters, setting, problem and solution. 
• Encourage storytelling — ask your child to make up a story about a picture, toy or something that happened during their day. 
• Plan before writing by drawing a quick picture or talking through what will happen at the beginning, middle and end.

Maths

In Maths, students have been learning about the split strategy for subtraction. Students are learning how to make the top number a friendly number by counting back to 10 and then splitting the bottom number into smaller parts. This strategy helps make taking away two 1-digit numbers easier and builds their confidence with mental maths. These are a few examples of the subtraction split strategy:

Grade 1 have also been learning about duration and understanding that events have a start and end time. They have been finding out how long an event takes by counting from the start time to the end time. 

Students have also been exploring equal groups using arrays and knowing that arrays have columns and columns go down to find the total. They have been skip counting in 2s, 5s and 10s to find the total number of objects in each group.

Finally in Maths, Grade 1 have been investigating and recording responses on a tally chart and block chart to interpret the data to identify which were the smallest and biggest values. In block charts, one box means one response. We colour the boxes in each column for each response, so it makes it easier to see how many people said yes or no.

How you can support at home:

• Make equal groups using everyday objects such as blocks, toys or buttons. Ask, “Are the groups equal?” and “How many are in each group?”
• Practice skip counting by 2s, 3s, 5s or 10s when making equal groups.
• Ask your child simple questions such as “What is your favourite colour?” or “Do you prefer ice cream or chocolate?” and collect the answers using tally marks and/or block charts.

Humanities

In Humanities, students have continued learning about water as a precious resource used in many ways, such as drinking, cooking, cleaning, farming, and recreation. They explored why it is important to use water carefully and the different ways people can help care for water, such as reducing waste, turning off taps, and keeping water sources clean. Hopefully, this has created more awareness of sustainability and encouraged our students to make small changes in their daily lives to protect water resources. 

Grade 1 also developed their understanding that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have a deep and ongoing connection to water, Country, and Place. They learnt that water is not just a physical resource, but holds cultural, spiritual, and practical importance.  

Respectful Relationships

In Respectful Relationships, Grade 1 has been learning about gender norms and stereotypes. They have been doing this through a collection of activities focused on developing an awareness of positive and negative gender norms, developing an appreciation of difference, and reflecting on their own likes, dislikes, and strengths. 

Digital Technology

Finally, in Digital Technology, the focus has been on how we can use our critical thinking and problem-solving skills when facing digital dilemmas. The students explored different solutions and learnt how to be a responsible digital citizen and show integrity when facing digital dilemmas. 

Reminders 

• End of term is Friday 18th September at 2:30 pm. 
• Term 4 begins on Monday 5th October. 
• Please label uniform items clearly with your child’s name. 
• Please continue to read every night and ensure your child swaps their take-home readers on their allocated day. 

•  Please watch until 5:18 to view and practice the words we have learnt so far. 

Warm regards and thank you for your ongoing support in your child’s learning journey, 

Ms. Santos, Ms. Duncan, Ms. Kobrynovich, Ms. Marsden, Ms. Newman, Ms. T, Ms. Hannah, 

Ms. Stafford, Ms. Chandler, Mrs. Mill, Ms. Fetolofai and Ms. Doris of PLC1 😊