Grade 1 Community News

Dear Grade 1 Families,

We are already coming to the end of Term 1! The term has flown by. We are so incredibly proud of all the children and how they have settled into their Grade 1 class. Below is a snapshot of what we have been working on over the past fortnight and some simple ways you can support your child at home.

First off, congratulations to the following students on receiving their awards 🎉

InitiaLit

In InitiaLit, students have been building on their early reading and spelling skills by learning some important new letter patterns. We have continued learning new digraphs, including ng (as in ring and strung). We also learnt several concepts including compound words and nouns.

Our new Tricky Words are: here, what, want, some, where, should, would, and could. These are words that don’t always follow the usual spelling rules, so lots of repetition really helps.

Students have been doing well using their InitiaLit workbooks to practise letters, sounds and words, as well as their handwriting books to develop neat letter formation.

How you can help at home:

• Read for a few minutes each night and ask your child to spot words with double letters or digraphs.
• Practise tricky words by writing them on paper, saying them aloud, or using them in a sentence.
• Encourage your child to ‘teach’ you a new sound they have learned - this builds confidence and understanding.

Math

In Math, students have been practising their fluency. This helps them to remember their maths facts and to solve problems quickly and correctly. They have been using counting on with their fingers to practise this skill, and they have done a brilliant job. 

They have also focused on writing addition facts from number bonds and understanding that there can be 2 addition facts for one number bond. They have learnt that “when the parts don’t change, the whole doesn’t change.”

Grade 1 have also built on their learning of polygons by examining the properties of pentagons, hexagons and octagons and knowing how many straight sides and vertices these shapes have. 

How you can help at home:

• Ask your child to practise counting on using their fingers
• Discuss “when the parts don’t change, the whole doesn’t change.” and ask them to write 2 addition sentences for a number bond
• Encourage them to draw/make different polygons and see if they can identify any in their surrounding environment 

Humanities

In Humanities, they have moved onto a new topic, looking at how places change over time using their prior knowledge from the previous module. Grade 1s are exploring how places - natural, managed and built - can change over time. They will examine photographs, drawings and simple maps to describe visible changes in their local environments. 

Ask your child/children how Tarneit Rise Primary School has changed over time. What do they notice between the 2 photographs?

Storybook and Vocabulary

As part of our vocabulary learning, students read the text ‘Sam and Dave Dug a Hole’ and were introduced to three new words: mission, spectacular, and improve. Students explored these words through activities such as retelling, acting out and making connections to their own experiences. 

You can help practise these words at home by encouraging your child to use them in conversation or acting out the words together while talking about what they mean.

Writing

In Writing, students are learning about retelling a story. They have been focusing on retelling a story/event in order using first, next and last. 

Students are also learning how to change parts of a sentence and understanding that this helps them to be creative and make their writing more interesting. They have been using their previous story book lessons to change the character and setting in their sentence. 

Author’s Visit Incursion

This week, our Grade 1 students had the exciting opportunity to take part in an Author’s Visit incursion with Krystal Wade, who is the author of Finding Toby’s Smile. Krystal shared her inspiration and writing process, helping students learn how stories are created from the early planning stages through to publication.

During the session, students explored the key parts of a narrative, including the character, setting, problem and solution, using our Story Champs icons and gestures. It was a fun and engaging experience that supported our writing program and helped students grow in confidence as storytellers and writers.

Calendar:

Harmony day is today! Stay tuned for the next newsletter to see what we got up to!

April 2nd is the last day of term.

April 20th Term 2 starts!

Reminders:

• It is important that all students have and wear their school bucket hat for playtimes during Term 1. Our Australian sun can be quite harsh, so the rule is firm - no hat, no play!
• We encourage families to work together to get students to school on time. Classes start the day with morning circle time, and we would love all students to be at school by 8:45am so they don’t miss out.
• Continue to use Numbots, TimesTable Rock Stars, and Aussie Decodables at home. Logins were provided at Meet and Greet - please contact your child’s classroom teacher if you need a copy of their login details.

Thank you, as always, for your ongoing support and partnership in your child’s learning. We love sharing this journey with you!

Warm regards,

PLC 1