Year One Team News

Hello Year One families,

It’s hard to believe we are already almost half way through the term. The rest of the term is shaping up to be exciting too! We can’t wait to see all of the creative costumes this Friday to celebrate Book Week. We also have swimming during weeks 7, 8 and 9 and then Footy Day to finish off the term. There’s bound to be some tired kids but hopefully the fun and excitement will get us through.

Swimming

There is already a great deal of excitement about our upcoming swimming program. Starting on Thursday Week 7, we swim every day for 10 days at Sweeney’s Swim Centre in Altona. The event is open on Compass for you to provide consent and payment for your child to attend. Please return the medical form attached to the pack sent we sent home by We will be looking for two parent volunteers per class to come along and assist each day. You will need to have completed the Parent Helper Course (link via Compass home page) and have a valid Working With Children Check, sighted by the office to attend. We cannot run this program without your support, thank you in advance. 

Show and Tell

Thank you for supporting the Class Pet initiative during Show and Tell last term. The students loved the process, but we also acknowledge that it is quite the responsibility to care for a pet for two nights!

This term, the students will be bringing home a small box in which to place something interesting. The object MUST fit into the box. The students are to then write three clues as to what is in the box. They will read these clues to the class and their classmates will try to guess what the object is. Once the three questions are asked, the child will reveal their object and then talk about what it is and why they chose it.

Each child may have two nights to prepare, so we will have the same arrangements as last term:

• Box home on Monday – Return to school on Wednesday
• Box home on Wednesday – Return to school on Friday
• Box home on Friday – Return to school on Monday

We look forward to some creative thinking when it comes to choosing items to fit in the box!

CERES excursion 

Last week our little learners took off to Brunswick to visit the community environment park, CERES. During this excursion, students were led by park leaders through a rotation of activities, immersing them in First Nation culture and knowledge. This included exploring a range of plants both used for food and medicine (The lemon myrtle plant was a notable crowd favourite). We learnt dreamtime stories through dance and acting and we practised telling new stories through symbols and painting OCRE onto our arms. It was great to see the Grade Ones bring so much enthusiasm and compassion towards our special ancient Australian culture. 

Curriculum Focus: Weeks 5-6

Reading: During this term we will be covering stage 7.4 of the Little Learners Love Literacy program. Next week we will be learning about the split vowel digraph 

i_e (as in ‘kite’) and long i sound (as in find). Week 6 will be the split digraph e_e (as in theme).

Writing: We are looking at procedural texts including how they are organised and how verbs and adverbs are used to describe an action.

Numeracy: We will be focusing on chance and probability in week 5 and identifying outcomes of familiar events involving chance and describing them using everyday language such as ‘will happen’, ‘won’t happen’ or ‘might happen’. Week 6 will see us learning about sharing collections equally and recognising whether or not there is a remainder after sharing equally.

Inquiry:  Our topic this term is around Geography. So far we have ‘travelled’ Australia and England. During the remainder of the term we will be learning about other countries including their geography, cultures and celebrations. 

Willy Kids/Respectful Relationships: Our Willy Kids focus is “Willy Kids are Bounce Back". We will be discussing and learning to understand what it means to bounce back and choose our responses carefully when dealing with decisions, disappointments and new challenges. Our focus for Respectful Relationships this term is “Positive Gender Relationships”. 

Warm regards,

The Grade One Team –  Edan Bacegga (1B), Claire Davies (1D) & 

Kayleen Dumic & Anna Swan (1K)