YEAR ONE
Grade Bulletin - Term Two, 2021
Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Primary School provides a range of holistic learning experiences to enable students to:
- Participate in the life and mission of the school.
- Deepen their knowledge and engagement with the Catholic faith and tradition.
- Build capacity to continuously reason, reflectively, logically and critically.
- Embrace interdependence of human existence as global citizens, who are responsible to and for themselves and others.
- Engage in learning in a multitude of ways, through personalised and self-paced learning.
Religious Education
1.3 Easter - This unit develops the students’ familiarity with the Easter story while introducing the stories of the Ascension and Pentecost.
1.1 Baptism - This unit introduces Baptism as the sacrament of initiation into the Church community. The emphasis here is on sharing in the new life of Christ. The unit presents the key symbols and actions used in the Rite of Baptism. Through these stories, children continue to engage with the mystery of God’s abiding presence.
English
Reading and Viewing: We will continue to engage the children in guided, shared and independent reading activities aimed at developing their comprehension, decoding skills and fluency.
Writing and Representing: This term Year One is learning about the concept of ‘Perspectives’. We will be exploring the question ‘Why is it important to view and value different perspectives?’ Our writing activities this term will focus on persuasive writing and will be based upon the texts ‘Room on our Rock’ by Kate and Jol, ‘The Very Hungry Bear’ by Nick Bland and ‘The Day the Crayons Quit' by Drew Daywalt.
Handwriting: Using the text ‘Writing Time 1’ the children will continue to work on their pencil grip, correct formation of letters (including starting point and direction) and correct sizing of letters. They will continue to improve writing within lines.
Spelling: The Soundwaves program incorporates a sound-to-letter strategy, meaning that sounds can be represented in more than one way. This approach focuses first on the basic units of sound in our language phonemes. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word. The program then explores the letters that represent these sounds known as graphemes. A grapheme is the letter or letter combination used to represent a phoneme in the written form. In Term 2 we will be focusing on the graphemes g, gg, u, o, h, j, ai, ay, a_e, l, ll, ee, e, ea, m, mm, i_e, y, n, nn, ng.
Speaking and Listening: The students will be encouraged to refine their listening skills and develop oral recount and questioning skills.
Mathematics
Children are grouped according to needs and ability within their classes. All classes will be working through the early part of the Stage One outcomes of the Mathematics Syllabus. This term we will work in the syllabus strands of 2D shapes, patterns and algebra, whole number, multiplication and division and area.
Science and Technology
This term Year One will be continuing the unit ‘Spot the Difference’. The unit provides students with an opportunity to observe change and explore the materials in their world. They will explore change through the context of food e.g. ice blocks, chocolate, spaghetti and popcorn. Students will learn how through heating and cooling food can change its properties and whether the change can be reversed or not.
There will be a focus on mixtures and the effect of combining materials together. Using technology to evaluate their investigations will assist them in drawing conclusions about how fast or slow a change can happen and the consequences of these changes. Children will be engaged in design and production activities using technology and STEM skills.
Mandarin
This year students in Kindergarten to Year 6 will be participating in a Chinese language program called the Meg Language Program. The Meg Curriculum is written by the co-author of the Australian Curriculum.All students and teachers will participate in the digital learning platform via Zoom weekly sessions.
Geography
Students will continue to investigate the natural and human features of places. They describe the reasons places change and identify the active role of citizens in the care of places. Students explore activities occurring in places and how spaces within places can be used for different purposes.
Creative Arts
The children will be learning about primary and secondary colours and how colours are mixed to create new colours through the medium of watercolour paints. The children will focus on portraits and collages related to Key Learning Areas they are studying this term.
The students will be also participating in some drama and dance activities in preparation for the school Lion King Musical.
1White has Music with a specialist teacher on Thursdays.
Personal Development, Health and Physical Education
The Stage One Physical Education unit is aimed at providing opportunities for students to develop their skills and build confidence in Fundamental Movement Skills. Students will practice and apply these skills through activities and traditional Indigenous Games. Students will also be engaging in Dance, practising for the upcoming Lion King Musical. Games are encouraged to build teamwork, communication, strategy and game sense and resilience.
Homework
This term homework will continue to consist of reading every night and spelling. We have introduced some optional mathematics homework which will revise over basic skills and current concepts taught.
We look forward to working with you and your child this term. If you have any concerns, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s teacher via a note or by appointment through the office.
Ms Liz O'Brien and Miss Holly Nicola (1Blue)
Mrs Nicole Pyne (1Gold)
Mrs Kate Patrick and Miss Holly Nicola (1White)
Important Dates for Year 1
Sport Day
1Blue – Monday and Wednesday
1Gold – Tuesday and Friday
1White – Monday
Library
1Blue – Wednesday (odd weeks)
1Gold – Thursday (odd weeks)
1White – Thursday (even weeks)
School Term - Tuesday, 20 April - Friday, 25 June 2021