1/2 A Mainstream 

What we have been up to: 

As we approach the end of the first semester, we wind up our unit on “bugs” and reflect on our learning.  It is evident from the students' information reports and accompanying labelled diagrams that they have a stronger understanding of features, needs, behaviours and habitats of the living things in their gardens and yards. Well done 1/2A.

Maths:

In our numeracy lessons, we have continued to explore addition and subtraction with understanding 10s Facts and their connection to the Bridge to Ten strategy. We then took this understanding of building tens into solving addition and subtraction with the vertical algorithms. Using our understanding of place value, we lined up the numbers underneath each other based on their place values (ones, tens, hundreds, etc.) and then added or took away each column separately, starting from the right. Students were very excited to have a go and understand why this worked. 

If you would like to practise basic addition or subtraction facts with your child at home, you could generate the facts by using a pack of playing cards with the royals taken out. Flip two cards and add them together. Ask them what strategy they used to work it out. If you want to make this Addition Snap, the fastest person to add the two numbers together wins the cards. The person with all the cards at the end of the game WINS! 

Literacy:

We have continued our focus on procedural (How to) text types, and you may want to support this learning at home over the holidays by following recipes or ‘how to make’ different arts and crafts. I was asked by the students to post a photo of the Rice Pudding Cloze activity we did last week. You could make it with them over the holidays. It’s an old recipe, so maybe half the sugar!!!! We spent the last week publishing a piece of writing from this term using our best handwriting and fixing all the mistakes we made to our draft in the revising and editing stage.

As part of our phonics program, we have continued with Little Learners Love Literacy Stage 7.3 sounds. These sounds included: oo as in goose, le as in Little, ow as in brown, and ou as in couch. We continue to practise our reading fluency skills by reading in our fluency pairs most mornings. It’s been great to hear how well they give feedback and how well they are taking it on. 

What’s to come in the next two weeks:

The school holidays will finally be here! While we are not at school together, here are some ways families can maintain growth and support learning a home:

• Continue our home reading program. Record any books that you read from the library or your own collection. If your child is choosing a text that is ‘too easy’, work on other skills like fluency and comprehension strategies (such as retell and vocabulary).
• Visit your local library. It's a fun, free activity for the whole family. 
• Play lots of card games.
• Use the photos in our newsletters to stimulate conversation about school and learning!

Stephanie