Classroom News

Grade 1 & 2

Hello families of Grade 1 and Grade 2! Welcome back to yet another fantastic term here at BPS! We have quite a fun term in store for our students, and we are already deep into our learning.

Inquiry

Firstly, how amazing do our portraits look?! We are so proud of the care and dedication the Grade 1’s and 2’s put into bringing their self-portraits to life! If you find yourself in our library, feel free to enjoy a little exhibition of what makes us unique!

For Term 2, our unit is titled ‘How Do I Best Look After Myself?’. Throughout this unit, we are looking at the different ways we can take care of ourselves. We will be looking at dental hygiene, road safety, sleep, and lots more. Keep checking in with your child about all the ways we can stay safe, stay healthy, and stay happy.

We have an incursion on May 25th with Mr Paramedic called ‘Students Save Lives’. Students will get to learn how to react in an emergency situation in a fun and interactive way. Please see COMPASS or your classroom teacher for further information.

Reminders

• Zip-Ups to be brought back in your child’s bag please, with their Home Reading Journal filled in. 5-10 minutes a night really helps continue that growing love for reading!
• Zip-Ups are also the best way for the school to send home notes and reminders, so keep checking them regularly for information about events and reminders.
• Reading Logs checked by your classroom teacher on Fridays. 
• Students do not require hats for outside play in Terms 2 and 3, however please keep them in bags in case of high UV days.
• Library bags needed on Library days for borrowing.
• Please label all of your child’s belongings, particularly hats and jumpers. 
• A reminder that students are not to be wearing “Smart Watches” at school. 

Important Dates for Term 2

May 7th - Mother’s Day stall.

May 14th - OPEN NIGHT!

May 25th - Mr Paramedic incursion - see COMPASS.

May 22nd - PPD Day. No students for the day.

June 8th - King’s Birthday holiday.

Weeks beginning June 15th and June 22nd - Swimming week*

June 16th - Reports live for parents.

June 18th - Parent/Teacher interviews**

June 22th - Parent/Teacher interviews**

June 24th-25th - Parent/Teacher interviews**

June 26th - Term 2 ends.

*Swimming schedule to be communicated closer to the date.

**Times for Parent/Teacher interviews to be communicated closer to the date.

Reading, Writing & Spelling

In Reading, we will be focussing on retelling, making connections, and answering questions with fiction and non-fiction texts. We have a fantastic range of mentor texts that will allow students to practice their skills while continuing to build fluency and word knowledge. 

We appreciate the time you take at home to read with your child! We encourage your children to keep their reader books for a couple of nights (or read them twice in a night) in order to practise their fluency and comprehension, as well as their decoding and phonics skills. 

Ensure you are asking your children open ended questions at the end such as:“(Looking at the front cover) What do you predict will happen in this story?”“How do you think the character is feeling?”“What connections can you make to this story?”(After reading) “Can you summarise the text in a few sentences?”(After reading) “What would you change in this text if you wrote it?”

In Writing, with the Writing Process under our belt, we are strengthening our narratives with more descriptive and powerful language that entices our readers to continue reading our texts. We are exploring new and advanced adjectives, noun and verb groups, sizzling starts and ends, and interesting titles. We will also build our knowledge of persuasive writing and techniques to get our audience to agree with us.

In Spelling, we are continuing with our Heggerty’s and Phonics programs, aimed at decoding and encoding, or “segmenting and blending” words in order to read and spell them. We will also explore high frequency words, as well as suffixes and prefixes.

Mathematics

This term in Maths we will be covering the following topics:

• Place Value
• Addition and Subtraction
• Statistics and Data
• Measurement, especially Length and Time
• Patterns and Algebra

We will be moving through explicitly teaching mathematical skills and proficiencies, participating in real life problem-solving activities and developing our fluency through maths games. This term will see revision of familiar concepts, as well as challenging students with new mathematical ideas and expanding their knowledge and understanding.

We are looking forward to having an awesome term of learning and fun in Year 1 and 2! 

 -  The Year 1/2 Team!