Grade 1 News

Important Reminders

All important dates and events are on our Compass Calendar, please check the calendar regularly to stay up to date!

Grade 1 Specialist Timetable 

Library

Grade 1 Library is on Thursdays. Please ensure your child has their library bag so they can borrow weekly. 

Readers are swapped on Mondays- Please ensure your child brings their old reader and 'Take Home' bag every Monday. Students are required to bring their take-home bags to school daily.

A few upcoming dates-

Tuesday 29th October - Sustainability Day

Thursday, October 31: Raising Kids in a Digital World  7:30 - 9:00pm

Tuesday 5th November - Melbourne Cup Public Holiday 

Friday 8th November - Colour Run

Monday 11th November - Curriculum day

Sustainability Day

Please see the attached flyer regarding our upcoming Sustainability Day on the 29th of October. Parents/Guardians/Special people are invited into the classrooms at 2:40. Please collect resources as outlined in the flyer

Please collect

For this day, we are asking families to collect small plastic/recyclable items to bring into the classroom for students to plant in.

Please bring these in by Friday 25th October.

Some examples include, plastic biscuit trays, punnets (no holes), containers, the bottom of a plastic bottle etc. ***Please no glass

Preview for Learning:

Literacy

Grade 1 students jumped right into their Author Study on Julia Donaldson! They were introduced to the text ‘Tiddler’ and were encouraged to make predictions based on the front cover. Students reflected on previous learning on the Narrative Hill in preparation for our Narrative Unit this term. Connecting both reading and writing together, students used components of the narrative hill to retell parts of Tiddler. 

In reading, students practised inferring the character's feelings and thinking throughout the book of Tiddler. Jumping into sentence level grammar, students practised their boundary punctuation (capital letters, full stops and question marks). 

This week, students read The Snail and the Whale, mirroring the same concepts from the previous week of retelling and inferring. In Writing, we focused on expanding our sentences by thinking about the 5W’s (who, what, when, where and why). 

Word work consisted of identifying compound words and the spelling rule ‘ing’. 

Preview of learning:

We will continue on our adventure with Julia Donaldson and start to plan our narratives. Word work will include multisyllabic short vowels and the spelling rule -ed. 

Numeracy

This fortnight students have been looking at place value and how the position of a digit determines its value. Students looked at two-digit numbers on a place value chart and represented the number using unifix. Students were asked to identify the value of each digit with the unifix to support them. For example, in the number 24, the digit 2 represents 2 tens, 20. 

We are also learning about shapes this term. Students have begun learning about 2D shapes and the number of edges and corners of different shapes. 

When given open-ended tasks, students have also been learning to ‘try, check, and improve’. This strategy links to our school Learner Profile of persisting and accepting a challenge. 

Preview of learning:

In the coming weeks, students will be learning about Australian Money. Students will be asked to describe the different coins and order coins in order of worth. Students will also add money and look at real-life examples. 

Inquiry

This fortnight in Inquiry, we began our new topic about Sustainability!

Our lessons are guided by the teacher acting as ‘earth’ and teaching students about our Earth and how to take care of it. We began by creating class KWL charts that highlighted what students already knew about taking care of the earth, and some topics they wondered about. We learnt that the Earth is mostly covered by water and that it is the only planet with life on it. Students identified any unfamiliar words and we added these to our class vocabulary displays. 

We also learnt about rubbish and where our rubbish goes. We looked at the different coloured bins used and how that goes to landfill. This led to discussions about plastic not being able to decompose and how landfill can lead to hazardous gases in the environment and hurt living things.

Preview of learning

In the coming weeks, students will learn about natural resources and how we can use them and also begin learning about’ Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’. 

This leads us to our upcoming Sustainability Day where students will complete a range of activities and engage in a fun incursion to teach them about where our water goes, where our rubbish goes and how to reduce, reuse and recycle. 

Wellbeing

This fortnight students have explored how courage helps us to create healthy friendships.  It was wonderful to hear students describe courage as 'when we face a situation and feel butterflies inside, but we do it anyway because it is the right thing to do'. Students also reflected on a time they needed courage in a friendship and shared stories about a time when they needed to draw on that inner strength. Some examples included when we needed to say sorry to a friend, standing up for a friend and even trying to make a new friend! We have had lots of fun in the Curious Corner already this term, enjoying the new theme of 'Living Things'. It is a wonderful opportunity for students to apply what they learn through our Wellbeing programs as they play, learn and socialise in this space.

Preview of learning:

Next week, we will be exploring the topics of Gender and Identity with students. Students will reflect on their identity; their likes, dislikes and their strengths and develop an awareness of positive and negative gender norms.

Student of the Week

Congratulations to our Grade 1 award winners.

From the Grade 1 teachers,

Caillin Ibbotson, Isabella Albanese, Kayla Pepper & Rachel Ryan