What's On In 1/2

Welcome to another busy week in Grades 1 and 2! Here are some of the highlights—it's been a week full of excitement and learning!

Iuk Season

This week, students have been exploring the seasons as defined by the Wurundjeri calendar. This exploration is part of our broader focus on understanding our connection to Country and learning about ourselves. 

Iuk Season marks the time when eels migrate through the rivers and waterways. During this season, the Wurundjeri people catch and prepare eels for food. The weather becomes cooler, and the days start to shorten. Nature shows signs of the season's change in various ways. Eels move through the rivers, certain plants begin to change, and animals, such as birds, start migrating. 

During this season, The Wurundjeri people built eel traps and fished in the rivers. They also preserved eels for food and trade. By observing changes in plants and animals, they planned their activities accordingly.

Maths

Place Value This week in Mathematics, we have been focusing on place value, which forms one of the big ideas in maths. Place value involves the ability to recognize and work with units of place value, allowing us to view larger numbers as counts of ones, ten, and hundreds, rather than collections of individual ones. It emphasizes the concept of structure, where "10 of these is 1 of those."

Informal Measurements

In addition to our work on place value, we’ve also been exploring the concept of measuring—specifically, length. To make it more engaging, we met Edward the Giraffe and his turtle friend Cyrus from the book Giraffe Problems, both of whom had a rather unique dilemma: Edward felt his neck was "too necky" and Cyrus’ thought his neck was pathetic. The students discussed and explored various methods of measuring objects and quickly realized how tricky it can be to determine length without a consistent standard. Check out some photos of their hands-on explorations!