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!

A few upcoming dates

Thursday, May 8: Mother’s Day Stall

Monday, June 9: Monarch’s Birthday - Public Holiday

Thursday, July 3: Cultural Day

Friday, July 4: Last Day Term 2 - 2.30pm finish

Production dates:

Tuesday 2nd September

Wednesday 3rd September

Library

Please refer to the timetable below of which shows what day each class is going to the library. Please ensure your child has their library bag so they can borrow weekly. 

Please remember to send your child's take-home folder to school each day.

Homework

For homework in Grade 1 the expectation is that students will read their take-home book to an adult each day. Every student will receive a new book from their classroom on a Monday. Students will need to return their previous book before receiving a new book. 

Here are some optional activities: 

Click Here 

Learning in Action

Literacy

Over the last fortnight of Term 2 students have been busy within the Literacy space.

Word Work

Students have been learning how to read and spell words and sentences that have the ‘ar’, 'or' and 'aw' digraphs. 

Students have been working hard to isolate each sound verbally, and transfer the sound knowledge to their spelling and writing.

Sentence Level Writing

Students have been learning to expand simple sentences by including conjunctions ‘but’ and ‘because’ in a sentence. Students have also been learning to identify sentence types, such as questions and statements. A statement sentence tells you something and ends with a full stop. While a question, asks something and ends with a question mark. Progressing into generating our own who, what, when and where questions. 

Handwriting

Students have been revising previously learning, practising both the lowercase and uppercase version of the following letters: 

Literature Unit

We have continued with our Literature Unit called ‘Indigenous stories from the past’. The texts we have explored have included Tiddalick the Frog and Clever Crow. This has included describing character traits and unpacking the reason behind some of the characters choices within these Dreamtime stories and the effect.

Preview

Grade 1’s will continue with their Knowledge Rich Unit - Continents, countries and maps. 

They will learn new sounds (digraphs, trigraphs) and practise previous sounds in Word Work such as:  

• er, ir, ur
• air, ear

Numeracy

Addition

Over the past two weeks, our Grade 1 students have been busy exploring addition. We’ve had a great start to the term, building strong foundations and developing confidence with early addition skills.

Our learning has focused on two key ideas:

• Numbers can be added in any order: Students have been discovering that when we add two numbers, the order doesn’t change the total (e.g., 4 + 3 is the same as 3 + 4). They’ve explored this by using physical materials like counters and blocks.
• Addition number sentences can describe real situations: We’ve connected maths to everyday experiences, such as adding toys, animals, or classroom items. Students have been creating and solving number stories using sentences like “5 pencils + 2 pencils = 7 pencils” to show how addition helps us describe the world around us.

We’re so proud of how engaged and enthusiastic the students have been. Keep an eye out for chances at home to chat about addition in daily activities like shopping, cooking, or setting the table!

Location and Transformation

In this unit, students explored positional language and movement to describe the location of objects and how they change position.

Key learning goals:

• Understanding and using positional language (e.g., near, next to, underneath, inside, outside, in front, around, below, above, left, right, forwards, backwards, under, clockwise, anticlockwise).
• Describing the position of objects using spatial language.
• Following and giving instructions that involve movement and turns.
• Using language to describe how an object has moved or changed position.

Students enjoyed plenty of hands-on activities, games, and movement-based tasks as they developed their spatial awareness and direction-giving skills.

Preview for Learning: Over the next two weeks, students will be building on their understanding of addition, to tackle subtraction. They will be revising their understanding that = means 'the same as' in a subtraction context, as well as learning that 'subtraction is taking parts away from a total'. Additionally, they will be introduced to Mass and Capacity.

Knowledge Rich

Students have begun to immerse themselves in the Knowledge Rich Unit, ‘Continents, countries and maps’. In this unit, students will find their way through maps of various continents, generate the skills to tell and decipher directions, and learn about animals and their habitats across our nation. 

In the last week, students have learnt the purpose of a map, the four directions on a compass, the 5 oceans, the 7 continents and also began exploring popular attractions in Australia and labelling them on our own map.

Wellbeing

Through our RRRR’s program (Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships), students have been exploring emotional literacy. We have been naming emotions and identifying ways that emotions are shown in body language. Through acting and identifying experiences that can trigger emotions, students have been reflecting on times they have felt a particular way and strategies that they used to overcome this. Grade 1’s have also identified emotions in others and suggested ways to support others.

From the Grade 1 teachers, 

Ms Holmes, Miss Albanese, Mrs Reynolds and Mrs Ryan

Updates from around the school

Green Team News:

Under the guidance of Mrs Stokol and Mrs Alexander, the Green Team met for the first time this week. What a meeting it was! All up across years 3-5 we have close to 50 very excited and passionate students wanting to do their part. Whether it’s helping to keep the school free of rubbish, looking after and developing the plants gardens, educating the school community about sustainability, there was a buzz in the air as students shared their ideas and signed up for roles. A new initiative we’ve introduced this term is the collection of 10c containers. The special lunch day during last term raised $21. We look forward to saving these containers on a daily basis from going to landfill and turning them into cash. Money raised will be invested back into Green Team initiatives. 

Involvement in the Green Team is all inclusive. It’s not too late for your child to get involved should they wish.