Classroom News
Grade 1 & 2

Term 2, Week 2

Welcome back to Year 1 and 2 everyone! We hope you have all had an exciting and restful holiday, filled with wonderful sleep-ins and delicious chocolates.

Inquiry

We have a brilliantly fun and educational term ahead of us. Our inquiry unit this term is ‘How Are We Connected?’ This term, the Year 1/2 students will be looking at the historical significance from their local areas to broader national scales. We will be exploring the areas around us, including suburbs, as well as understanding how Australia is broken up into states and territories, each with their own capital cities and interesting landmarks. This is a great opportunity to talk to your child and ask them what they know about the country they live in, and where they would like to explore in Australia.

Reading, Writing, and Spelling

This term, we are exploring some classic rich Australian texts, including ‘Are We There Yet?’ by Alison Lester and ‘Possum Magic’ by Mem Fox. We are using these texts to make text-to-self connections and expand our vocabulary. We will be tying our reading in with our inquiry unit for later in the term by analysing non-fictions texts and looking at their features.

We are continuing with our writing process this term. As we now have a strong grasp on the Writing Process, we are fluidly moving from unpacking seeds and drafting narratives to editing and publishing. To improve our writing skills, students are having one-on-one meetings with their teachers to get feedback and to create goals. These goals can range from making sure we use capital letters where appropriate to using greater descriptive language. Please ask your child often how their writing goals are improving.

Adding to our knowledge of writing, we are incorporating a daily phonics class. These phonics lessons focus on breaking down words into their individual sounds. We are understanding how letters work together to create sounds, as well as learning the language of decoding and encoding. If we come across a word we do not know how to spell, we know to chop it up and listen. In conjunction with our current spelling program, we are looking forward to enhancing our understanding of the English language.

Mathematics

We are super excited for our mathematics lessons this term! We are moving to statistics and data to begin with and are ready for a lot of fun creating questions, collecting answers and displaying and analysing the data. We will then move to length and measurement, and will finish the term with a look at mapping and a revision of place value.

Important Dates

7th May - Mother’s Day Stall.

19th-23rd May - Education Week. Details about Open Days to come.

26th May - National Sorry Day

6th June - Student-free Day

9th June - King’s Birthday

26th June - Parent-Teacher Interviews

30th June - Parent-Teacher Interviews

We are all ready for a fantastic term, and we are looking forward to you joining us to support our students’ educational journey.