Hello Lovely Level 1 Families

We hope you've all had a fantastic fortnight and you have been enjoying our beautiful weather.

Our Level 1 students have had a great couple of weeks. They have been working very well in class, being kind to one another, and producing some amazing work. Thank you for your support with ensuring such a smooth start to the year.

Please take note of our reminders below, particularly regarding the commencement of take home books and homework today.

Thank you.

Reminders

Please make sure your child brings their labelled hat for Term 1 and part of Term 2 (these can remain in their lockers for the term).

Kinect2Dance Arts Festival Program continues throughout the term on a Friday.

Take home books and homework will commence today. Students will bring home a homework book which has their Mathletics password on the inside cover, as well as a reading log sheet at the back of the book. Please record your child's reading at home on this sheet. When you need to switch out a new sheet, just let the class teacher know and we will provide a new one.

Take home books will be swapped each Tuesday and Friday. Please ensure your child has their book on these days. Please note: take home readers should be a'just right' book whereby students can practice reading with fluency, accuracy and expression. Good comprehension question starters are:

Who helped ____?
Who said ____?
Who was your favourite character?
What happened at the end?
What did ___ do?
What do you think will happen next?
Where is the story set?
Where are the characters?
Why did ___ do that?
Why is this important?
How did ___ feel?
How do you know?
How did ___ solve the problem?

Homework is not mandatory. All activities within the homework grid are revision/consolidation of what we have been learning in class.

Students have two weeks to complete any activities and books are to be returned by the following Friday fortnight.

A new homework grid will be issued each fortnight.

We encourage students to enjoy a fresh fruit/vegetable snack at 10 am every day. We find this helps the students to stay energised and focussed.

Most importantly, now that students have had a chance to settle in, we ask that parents drop their child off at their classroom door rather than enter the classroom. We find that students tend to settle better if parents say their goodbyes at the door.

Of course, you are welcome to briefly chat with us before school outside the classroom and after school. Please note, we have scheduled meetings on Mon-Wed after school so we have limited time to meet on those afternoons.

Students are welcome to bring their toys to school, but we kindly ask that the toys remain in their school bags during learning time to minimise distraction.

Timetable Term 1

Literacy

The Next Fortnight

Students will be exploring the texts Anemone is Not the Enemy by Anna McGregor and Edward the Emu by Sheena Knowles. In Reading, they will be inferring using clues from the text, as well as predicting and making connections to the story. For Writing, we are focusing on correctly punctuated sentences and including question marks and exclamation marks. We will continue to identify adjectives, nouns and verbs in texts and our own writing.

Core Literacy

Our daily Core Literacy lessons include many English components including handwriting, dictation, card deck, making words with letters and their sounds, reading words and texts and comprehension.

It is also a time when we incorporate the student text book, Spelling Mastery, twice a week into our lessons to revise sounds, letter names and the reading and spelling of words.

Here's what we will be focusing on over the next two weeks:

Week 5: New phoneme- ck rule- as in duck- when to use ck, not just a k

Heart Words- they, where, there

Morphology- FLOSS rule (see image)

Week 6: New phonemes- tch as in witch and dge as in wedge

Heart Words- who, your, four

Morphology- Suffixes (see image)

Every Thursday, students will bring home their levelled fluency reading sheet that they have been reading in class. It would be great if your child reads this text to you at home for further consolidation with fluency, expression and accuracy. Please note that there are comprehension question on the back of this sheet that can be revisted too. Thanks for your support with this.

Mathematics

Over the next two weeks, our Level 1 students will be exploring shapes, patterns, and skip counting through engaging, hands-on activities. Students will begin with a shape hunt, identifying and recording shapes in their environment. This connects to prior learning and strengthens their understanding of 2D shapes. They will also build mathematical vocabulary to describe the properties of shapes, such as sides and corners. In our pattern's unit, students will identify the repeating unit in patterns and create their own using materials, drawings, and symbols. This supports early algebraic thinking. Our number focus will be skip counting by tens and fives. Using concrete materials, number charts, and number lines, students will practise counting in multiples of ten to build strong number sense and place value understanding. At home, you can support learning by looking for shapes, creating simple patterns, and practising counting by tens and/or fives together.

Warm Regards,

The Level 1 Team

Nishtha Kapoor, Lizzie Parmar, Rhiannon Harris-Tudor and Robyn Hall

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