1/2 Classrooms

We are nearing the end of Term 1, which feels strange to say. We have two weeks left of our regular program before immersing ourselves into our first cultural week of the year! This term we have moved into our new building and it’s finally starting to feel like ours. With teachers adding their own touch, setting up the spaces in a calm and inviting way, it is really starting to come together.  

Pokemon cards are not to brought to school! Keep them safe at home please.

 Spanish Classrooms:  

In our Spanish literacy classes, we have been focused on descriptions of ourselves and our families. We are learning to talk about appearances, strengths, likes and dislikes and cultural celebrations. Soon we will be demonstrating what we have learned by writing a description on our own. It’s a challenge but we are up for it! 

In Spanish Maths we have just finished our focus on counting (some of us up to 1000...and beyond!). Now we are looking at adding and subtracting. This is a good time to remind parents, and students, that Essential Assessment is available from home. It is an online Maths platform that targets each student’s specific Maths level. Practice on it outside the classroom will really help students reach their full mathematical potential.  

English Classrooms:  

Here is a little overview of what English Literacy looks like in 1/2:  

The Code: This term our focus has been on phonemic awareness (the ability to notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds in a word) through call and response drills. We will be moving towards a spelling focus next term.  

Reading: We have been really enjoying our ‘Questioning the Author’ lessons this year. This is an opportunity to ask and answer questions about a picture book and deepen our understanding of a text. You may like to incorporate this strategy when reading at home. Here are some ideas of what questions you may ask.  

-Why did the author use that word? What did they mean by that? 

-How is the character feeling? What words did the author use to tell us that? 

-What is the author's message?  

Grammar: We have been learning about sentence types and how to stretch a sentence. Students have been practicing writing exciting sentences in their English books. 

Writing: This term our focus genre has been Narrative writing. We have learnt all about sizzling starts, mighty middles and exciting endings. Our stories are slowly coming to an end and we hope to publish them into a class book of short stories. Coming to a classroom library near you soon!  

English Maths is also looking a little bit different this year. We have taken the lense of ‘problem solving’ and ‘reasoning’ to launch our maths lessons with open-ended activities following a new model. This is a student-centered, structured inquiry approach which both enables and extends our students. 

Inquiry 

This year Inquiry also has a heavy literacy focus. Our project, ‘yo y mi equipo’ (me and my team) has centered around identifying our strengths and practicing a range of problem-solving strategies. This has allowed us to have a wellbeing lense as we integrated our start up program this term.  

1/2 General Information:  

Meet and Greet Q&A – Thank you to the families for attending our meet and greet presentations last week. We hope you found the information insightful and that we answered some of your questions. It was also lovely to put some faces to the names. 

Incursion - We are pleased to announce that we have a new incursion, The Happiness Habit, organised for Thursday the 14th of March. You will have received a Sentral message with more information.  If you have not yet made payment, please contact the office.

Logins for students have been re-sent. This includes logins for Essential assessment, RazKids and Nessy. 

Specialist – A reminder that students are dismissed from the quadrangle on Specialist days.  

Schedule – Here is an example of a typical weekly schedule in 1/2.