1/2 A Mainstream 

1/2A

What we have been up to: 

With a big focus on improving resilience and growth mindsets this term, our year 1/2 classes have been busy discussing and making our class ‘learning pits' and mantras to encourage students to keep trying. Students will inevitably face challenges at school, and we want to set them up for success by encouraging them to be a problem solver, see mistakes as learning curves and to seek help from their teacher and peers.

Maths:

We have been busy building our class maths norms. This entailed identifying the things we like and don’t like about working in maths groups or pairs and we practised reasoning, convincing other people and posing questions. Skills we will be using a lot when engaging with maths this year. Students were then introduced to the TPS maths instructional model (review, launch, explore, summarise, and relaunch) through the lense of a worded problem. They experienced ‘sweaty brain’ time (which was not comfortable for everyone), but after some instruction all enjoyed the feeling of thinking their way through. 

Literacy:

1/2A has kicked off phonics sessions by reviewing the Little Learners Love Literacy Stage 6, which includes the consonant digraphs: sh (shop), wh (what), ch (chop), tch (watch), ph (dolphin) and th (think). 

As we introduce the writer’s process to our students, we have been focussing on gathering writing seeds which are ideas for writing that might come from books, music, objects etc.

What’s to come in the next two weeks:

As we continue to establish our very important classroom agreements, mantras and learning pits, the year 1/2 students will enter the next phase of their integrated learning by participating in a process drama. 

In the coming weeks, students will continue to unpack writing seeds. We will start introducing the next stages of the writer’s process by planning and drafting recounts. We will also be using our emerging spelling and writing skills to learn about how to write a sentence. 

The Little Learners Love Literacy stage 7.1 sounds that we are focussing on for weeks 5-6 are: ay (play), ai (snail), ee (seed) and ea (beach). To reinforce their learning, students could be practising their spelling at home. 

In Maths, we are continuing our collection and analysis of data. Students will continue to practise the skills of asking questions, gathering information, creating tables using tally marks and turning these tables into bar graphs. We will also be continuing to practise our reasoning, problem solving and fluency skills while we investigate all the patterns we notice in the 100 chart.