Literacy

What a fantastic start to the year! Year 1 students have jumped straight into the year with their new literacy program InitiaLit. We have spent the last 2 weeks recapping letter and sound knowledge that was learnt in prep as well as learning that phonemes are small sounds in words, a syllable is a beat in a word, vowels are special letters… a, e, i, o, u, a digraph is two letter saying one sound, and a consonant is a letter that is not a vowel. We have added new tricky words to our tricky words tree over the last 2 weeks and they have been: are, very, her, said, was, you.

We have read and discussed the story “Fang Fang’s Chinese New Year” over the last two weeks and investigated the words of: groan, sprinkle and ferocious. Be sure to ask your child how these words were used in the story and how we have added them to our new House of Very Useful Words.

We are super proud of the transition into the new year and how well they have adapted to the changes in literacy this year.

PROUD values

Over our first two weeks of school, we have been learning about Grayling’s PROUD values. PROUD stands for performance, respect, open-minded, united and daring. Demonstrating performance means trying our best during in class or outside activities. Showing respect to others means treating people with kindness and fairness, listening to others and helping people. Being open-minded means that we are open to learning new things and considering the ideas of others. Being united means that we work well with others to achieve a goal together. Being daring means trying our best and being brave. In each classroom, we have created our own PROUD values display that we will refer back to throughout the year. We proudly live by these values every day!

Zones of Regulation

As we continue to support our Grade 1 students in their social emotional development, we have introduced a few activities in the past fortnight revolving around the Zones of Regulation. The Zones of Regulation is a framework designed to help children recognise and regulate their emotions effectively. By understanding the different “zones” - blue, green, yellow and red - students learn to identify their feelings and develop strategies to manage them in healthy ways. In the past week, students have played a game of ‘Zones of Regulation Feelings Charades’ where they had to take turns acting out an emotion without speaking whilst the rest of the class guessed which emotion they were portraying. As students engage in activities like this throughout the year, they’ll become more confident and resilient when navigating their emotions!

Holiday Writing

Students have been able to describe what they did over the holidays in their Recount Writing. They were given time to reflect and think about who, what, where and when their event took place and begin to describe the events including a picture. Our Grade 1 students did some exciting things over the holidays including family events/celebrations, trips to the city and shopping! It has been great to see our students have remembered to include some capital letters and full stops in their writing!

Ready to Learn Scale

Students will continue to use the Ready to Learn Scale in Grade 1. This is a special tool that helps students understand how they are feeling and if they are ready to have a great time learning. We are going to use it each time we come into the classroom as a way for students to check in with the teacher about how they are feeling. Students put up 1, 2 or 3 fingers to represent where they sit on the scale.

1. This is like when we are feeling really upset or angry and we really need to talk to the teacher about our feelings.

2. This is when we are in the yellow or blue zone. We may be feeling frustrated, sad or having trouble focusing and we might need to talk to the teacher or need some time to ourselves.

3. Ah, the green zone! This is when we are feeling calm, happy, and all set to learn and have fun with our friends in class!

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