Classroom News

Grade 1 & 2

Welcome back for Term 3. It’s hard to believe we are over halfway through the school year! We have hit the ground running in grade 1 and 2, with the children settling back into school routines with confidence and enthusiasm.

We look forward to a wonderful term of varied learning opportunities that will challenge and motivate our wonderful learners.

Our Inquiry Unit this term is based around the question How Do We Solve Problems In Our World?  We will specifically focus on inclusive and special places as we delve into this topic. Our excursion in week 4 will help the students consolidate their initial understandings and prepare for our planning and design part of the unit later in the term.

Literacy

Our literacy sessions encompass a variety of reading, writing and spelling strategies as we focus on reading fluency, oral language, phonemic awareness, vocabulary building and comprehension.

We are using the Mentor Texts of Under the Southern Cross by Frane Lessacs and Born to Run by Cathy Freeman (autobiography) to focus on several of these skills to start off the term.

Our Word of the Week is chosen from this Mentor Text and every week we do a deep dive into the origins and meanings behind the word. Children are becoming very creative at using these new words in their writing.

Mathematics

This term in Maths we will be covering the following topics: Location and transformation, money, chance, multiplication, division and fractions.

A Few Reminders

*Continue daily reading and recording on the reading log - see your teacher if you need a new one.

Regular home reading is an important habit to maintain. We encourage children to keep their reader books for a couple of nights (or read them twice in a night) in order to practise their fluency and comprehension, as well as their decoding and phonics skills. 

Continue to ask  your children open ended questions at the beginning and end, such as: (Looking at the front cover) "What do you predict will happen in this story?”

“How do you think the character is feeling?”

“What connections can you make to this story?” (to an experience that might be similar or a book or movie that has a similar theme)

(After reading) “Can you summarise the text in a few sentences?”

(After reading) “What would you change in this text if you wrote it?”

*Bring charged ipads to school every day

*Don’t forget your library books and bags on your designated library day

*A reminder to check that your child’s items are clearly labelled so lost items can be returned easily. (sometimes names can fade after lots of washing so get those sharpies out again)

Important Dates for Term 3

Friday 9th August -  Whole school Olympics Day

Thursday 15th August - Curriculum Day

Friday 16th August - Grade one and two excursion to Wombat Bend, Templestowe.

Wednesday 28th August - Book Fun Day

The Year 1/2 Team