From Yolanda Andrews, Year 1A teacher

Celebrating our uniquness

It might be cold outside, but our Year 1 students are on fire! Their creative juices were flowing as they explored narrative structures using the C-SPACE planning strategy. This tool helps young writers map out key elements of a story. By breaking down each section, the students successfully leveled up their word choices with descriptive adjectives. They worked incredibly hard to design detailed characters, and with ideas ranging from a girl with unicorn ears, sharp nails, and fangs to a "porcupine bee", their imaginations were truly limitless!

Other students used a planning tool called a Story Map to outline their writing. This strategy relies on a four-part framework that helps young writers turn the abstract concept of storytelling into a concrete, visual plan.

Beyond their narrative writing, the students also explored Australian history and learned about Wurundjeri Country. They practiced reading information passages all together, using bullet points to summarize key facts and identify topic-specific vocabulary. Following this research phase, the students focused on writing complete sentences to capture important historical events. While some of the history was quite confrontational, the students demonstrated maturity, respect, and quiet reflection throughout the lessons.

In Numeracy, our Year 1 students practised repeated addition to build a foundational understanding of multiplication. They explored arrays, which are neat arrangements of objects, numbers, or pictures organised into rows and columns. An array forms a perfect rectangle or square where every row contains the exact same number of items, and every column is the same length.

The math fun didn’t stop there! Students also explored division and equal sharing using concrete materials, open-ended questions, and, of course, everyone's favorite: mini-whiteboards!

In Wellbeing, we discussed stereotypes and how they create unfair or over-simplified beliefs about groups of people. We talked about how easily mistakes can happen when we make assumptions based on someone’s gender, age, or other qualities. For example, assuming an adult doesn't like computer games just because of their age is unfair, and it can make them feel bad about their hobbies. Instead, we celebrated how our differences make us all unique and special! The students loved listening to My Shadow is Pink by Scott Stuart, which is a heartwarming, rhyming picture book about a boy who loves princesses, fairies, and dresses. Afterwards, everyone beautifully reflected on what their own unique shadow would look like.

Well, that wraps up another few weeks of fabulous learning! Thank you for your continued support. We cannot wait to share all the exciting learning and fun planned for the rest of the term, including the crazy but cosy Pyjama Day!