Grade 1 News

Important Reminders

All important dates and events are on our Compass Calendar, please check the calendar regularly to stay up to date!

Sun Smart

As per our school's SunSmart policy, all students are required to wear hats till the end of April 2024.

Library

Grade 1 Library is now on Tuesdays. Please ensure your child has their library bag so they can borrow weekly.

Learning in Action

Wellbeing

Learning in Action: 

This week in grade 1, students have looked at emotions. Students were asked to think of different emotions and body actions that link to that emotion. It’s important to help students recognise that we all have many emotions, feelings, and moods. Some feelings are positive (feel good) and some are negative (feel bad), but they are all a part of being human. We want our students to have many words to describe their feelings. 

The photos below show students using their bodies to demonstrate feelings including happiness, pride, worry, and fear.

Upstander award:

To recognise students that support others, the Grade One teachers would like to introduce our new award, ‘The Upstanders Award’. Being a recipient of the Upstanders Award means that you have displayed not only our school values but are also a person who goes against the tide and will support a student or students during a “tricky situation”. This might look like, asking a student to stop being rude or using unkind words, or it might include helping someone in the yard who is visibly upset. However, most importantly, an Upstander is someone who consistently demonstrates these principles in a calm manner.

Our Upstander meeting is held each fortnight, the opposing week to Circles. The three very well-deserving Upstander Award recipients for Week 1 were:

Blair K (1A) Chase C (1i) & Olivia B (1PR).

Well done to these students! We look forward to announcing next fortnight's Upstander Award winners. 

Preview for Learning:

In the next few weeks, students will continue looking at emotions and what can trigger different emotional responses. Students will also start looking and thinking about emotions in other people and learning helpful suggestions to support their friends. 

Literacy

Learning in Action: 

This week, grade 1 students have enjoyed starting our new reading topic on non-fiction texts. We began our week by creating class KWL posters with what we already know, and what we want to learn about non-fiction texts. Students began comparing fiction to non-fiction books with a partner to highlight the similarities and differences. We also enjoyed settling back into our reading goal routines and practising our decoding and encoding skills.

In writing, we reflected on the sentence structure components we have already learnt. These include subject, verb, adjectives and adverbial when. This week, we were introduced to adverbial where and students had a go at writing sentences that included all of these sentence components. Students also began our informative writing unit by brainstorming topics that they know lots about. 

Preview for Learning: 

In the coming weeks, students will begin exploring features of non-fiction texts. Some of these include a table of contents, headings, sub-headings and page numbers. 

In writing, we will be expanding simple sentences by focusing on the who, what, where and when. We will also be beginning to draft a whole class informative writing piece. 

Maths

Learning in Action: 

This week, Grade 1 students have started learning all about addition. We have discussed the key language associated with addition, such as ‘plus’, ‘add’, ‘and’, ‘altogether’, ‘total’ etc. We love to have hand signals and actions to support student learning, so ask your children to show you what the action is to help us remember addition! Students have been learning how addition number sentences include two parts, a plus sign and the total (answer).

We have begun our new applied topic of location and transformation, whereby students are learning to use positional language to describe an object or person’s location. 

Preview for Learning: In the coming weeks, students will be learning a range of different addition strategies, such as ‘using friends of ten’, ‘counting on from the bigger number’, ‘identifying doubles’ and ‘make 10’.

Students will also be learning to give and follow directions which include appropriate positional language.

Inquiry

Learning in Action: 

This week students have been introduced to their new Inquiry Unit – Our Community! An exploration into the natural and human-made features of our communities and how we connect to them. This unit requires our students to gain an understanding of where they live, the features of their local communities and how people connect to each place differently. We commenced our unit with some big questions – What is human made? What is natural? What places are special to you? These are great discussions to have at home too! 

Preview for Learning: 

Next fortnight students will begin to learn where Australia is in the World and where Victoria is on a map of Australia. We will discuss key places in Victoria that students may know, such as:  Lysterfield, Melbourne (capital city), Phillip Island and Geelong. Locating them on a class map of Victoria. 

Students will also complete a compare and contrast of two different maps of Victoria one of which being an Indigenous map.

Message from STEM:

Exciting times ahead in STEM!

We are thrilled to share some exciting updates about our STEM program! As we continue to inspire and empower our students to explore the wonders of these vital fields, we are reaching out to our wonderful community for support.

Your generosity has always been instrumental in helping us provide enriching educational experiences for our students, and we are once again asking for your support to ensure the success and sustainability of our STEM initiatives.

Your support makes a significant difference to our students' learning opportunities and the success of our STEM program. Here are a few ways you can contribute:

Opportunities to help: 

• Donations of Timber/Wood, appropriate for construction E.g. Billy Cart bases or other small vehicles.   
• If you own or are a part of a company or business who would be willing to sponsor our engineering program. 
• If you have connections with hardware stores/companies, helping us to make contact in order to obtain suitable engineering resources. 
• If you have any household STEM-related materials such as; plastic bottles, milk bottle lids, masking tape, balloons, wooden skewers, plastic or paper cups, unwanted CD’s or DVD’s, Aluminium Foil please drop them off outside the STEM room. 
• Construction Crew: If you're handy with tools and have some basic experience in woodwork or mechanics, we would be delighted to have your help in the upcoming terms to assist with our Grade 6 Science and Engineering program. Please email sophiechamberlain@lysterfieldps.com or melissaadams@lysterfieldps.com

Thank you for your continued support,

Melissa Adams & Sophie Chamberlain

STEM Leaders

Lysterfield Primary School 

Student of the Week

Congratulations to our Grade 1 award winners.

Other Information

Mathematics Hub Information

https://www.mathematicshub.edu.au/media/iydnnnw3/year1_mathshub_flyer.pdf

Dr Justin Coulson - Breaking Point Information

https://happyfamiliesfamilyeducation.ac-page.com/breaking-point-with-dr-justin-coulson

From the Grade 1 teachers,

Caillin Ibbotson, Isabella Albanese, Kayla Pepper & Rachel Ryan