Grade 1 News

 Important Reminders

All important dates and events are on our Compass Calendar, please check the calendar regularly to stay up to date!

Sun Smart

As per our school's SunSmart policy, all students are required to wear hats till the end of April 2024.

Library

Grade 1 students go to the library every Thursday. We ask that students have a library bag so they can borrow books to read at home.

Learning in Action

Wellbeing

Learning in Action: 

his past fortnight we have completed the topic Help Seeking. We concluded this topic with the task of identifying the people in our lives from whom they can seek help, which ultimately linked what we have been preaching out in the playground when dealing with friendship fires. The task itself required students to identify 5 people (using their hands) who they can rely on to seek help and trust. Using the ‘help seeking hands’ worksheet students wrote/drew those people and shared them with their peers. The conversations and questions this provoked was fantastic – do we have different people depending on where we are? At school we may have our friends, teachers etc but at outside of school you may have family, emergency services etc. We are hopeful that these conversations will continue to be had out in the playground and for students they don’t need to “go it alone” when dealing with friendship fires.

The second topic we have engaged with this fortnight includes Emotional Literacy. Emotional Literacy is gives us the ability to recognise, understand, handle and appropriately express emotions. Students also partook in the Friendology tasks, Friendship Facts and Friend-o-metre. Deciphering through the traits that render a friendship “healthy” or “unhealthy” and finding the perfect balance.

Preview for learning: 

As we continue with Emotional Literacy, students will begin to engage in collaborative learning activities which will help students to build their social skills. Building a large vocabulary for emotions helps to increase emotional literacy, by building self-awareness and empathy for others.

Literacy

Learning in Action: 

This fortnight, students in grade 1 have started expanding their word knowledge, learning about adjectives while revising their knowledge of nouns and verbs. Students have been looking for adjectives in their reading, to support them to try to use adjectives in their writing. Students have also started looking at predicting. Predicting supports the students comprehension of the stories they are reading and it has been great to see them thinking deeply about the texts they are looking at. Students have also continued expanding their decoding skills, learning games to support their reading goals.  In Writing, the students have been focusing on thinking of ideas and the writing process of ‘think, talk, draw, label, write’. 

If you would like more information about decoding or the writing process, please see the displays outside 1A and 1PR.

In Library, students have been learning that there are 4 ways to read a book; read the words, read the pictures, read the words and pictures, or retell the story. Students used a 'magnifying glass' to focus on parts of the illustrations that they might not normally notice when reading. 

Preview for Learning: 

Students in grade 1 wil learn what a digraph is and will focus on decoding digraphs includ /sh/, /ch/, /th/, /ph/, and /ng/. Students will look at this sounds in both Reading and Writing. Students will also continue looking at narratives and go into detail about the Narrative hill, focusing on characters, setting and plot.

Maths

Learning in Action:

This fortnight, students continued learning about making and representing numbers using concrete materials in the classroom. We focused on counting with a purpose and how the position of a digit in a number represents its value. We also began our data unit and students thought of an appropriate question when looking at graphs. We also began our maths rotation routine and students focused on practising their own maths learning goal.  

Preview for Learning: .

In the coming weeks, we will continue looking at how a digit in a number represents its value by comparing and ordering numbers in an ascending order. We will also learn about representing numbers in different ways. For example, 23 can be made up of 2 tens and 3 ones, but can also be made up of 23 ones or, 1 ten and 13 ones. Students will also continue learning about our data unit by asking questions and recording responses using tally marks. 

Inquiry

Learning in Action: This fortnight students have had the opportunity to reflect on the key questions we have explored through our investigation of rules:

• Are rules always the same?
• Why do we have rules?
• How did you show honesty/fairness? 

Students have had a lot of fun putting their learning into action through playing a game and performing a role play in small groups after reading a picture storybook. We enjoyed hearing students reflect on these activities, discussing how important rules are to keep things ‘happy’, ‘organised’ and ‘fair’.

Preview for Learning: Over the next two weeks, students will participate in two more activities with the opportunity to reflect on the importance of rules, honesty and fairness. We look forward to seeing students share their reflections with parents at the Celebration Morning later this term.

Message from STEM:

Exciting times ahead in STEM!

We are thrilled to share some exciting updates about our STEM program! As we continue to inspire and empower our students to explore the wonders of these vital fields, we are reaching out to our wonderful community for support.

Your generosity has always been instrumental in helping us provide enriching educational experiences for our students, and we are once again asking for your support to ensure the success and sustainability of our STEM initiatives.

Your support makes a significant difference to our students' learning opportunities and the success of our STEM program. Here are a few ways you can contribute:

Opportunities to help: 

• Donations of Timber/Wood, appropriate for construction E.g. Billy Cart bases or other small vehicles.   
• If you own or are a part of a company or business who would be willing to sponsor our engineering program. 
• If you have connections with hardware stores/companies, helping us to make contact in order to obtain suitable engineering resources. 
• If you have any household STEM-related materials such as; plastic bottles, milk bottle lids, masking tape, balloons, wooden skewers, plastic or paper cups, unwanted CD’s or DVD’s, Aluminium Foil please drop them off outside the STEM room. 
• Construction Crew: If you're handy with tools and have some basic experience in woodwork or mechanics, we would be delighted to have your help in the upcoming terms to assist with our Grade 6 Science and Engineering program. Please email sophiechamberlain@lysterfieldps.com or melissaadams@lysterfieldps.com

Thank you for your continued support,

Melissa Adams & Sophie Chamberlain

STEM Leaders

Lysterfield Primary School 

REMINDER: Research project in your child’s classroom – seeking your consent

Dear Parent/Guardian,

Our Prep - year 2 teachers will be engaged in professional learning over the next two years with Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) and the La Trobe University’s Science of Language and Reading Lab (SOLAR Lab). The focus is on professional learning for our early years (Prep – Year 2) teachers. To assess the effectiveness of this professional learning, we will monitor student progress in literacy and would like to share this data for analysis with the research team. If you consent for us to share your child’s de-identified reading assessment data with AERO and the La Trobe University’s Science of Language and Reading Lab (SOLAR Lab), please complete the consent form link here: https://edresearch.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_428DHXC2BpQAIGW. Please note, you can consent for multiple children on the same form. 

If you have already consented for your child/children and in the future you decide to withdraw, then complete the withdrawal form link here: https://edresearch.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_7aeUoRln50TuSKq

Kind regards

Kristine Roose

Student of the Week

Congratulations to our Grade 1 award winners.

Other Information

Mathematics Hub Information

https://www.mathematicshub.edu.au/media/iydnnnw3/year1_mathshub_flyer.pdf

Dr Justin Coulson - Breaking Point Information

https://happyfamiliesfamilyeducation.ac-page.com/breaking-point-with-dr-justin-coulson

From the Grade 1 teachers,

Caillin Ibbotson, Isabella Albanese, Kayla Pepper & Rachel Ryan