Year 1 

Spotlight on Learning

Dear Families,

Warm regards,

The Jerusalem Community Team 

Important Reminders

1. Term 1 is a SunSmart term and 'No hat, no play', please ensure your child has their hat for school.
2. All students are expected to wear full St Thomas’ school uniform — either summer, or PE is fine, but it must be the official school uniform. 
3. Reading daily is a big factor in academic progression. Students should read everyday to a parent or family member to increase their word/sound knowledge.
4. Please ensure students eat breakfast before they arrive at school. Lunchboxes should include fruit or vegetables and lunch to fuel students for learning throughout the day.

This week:

Literacy-Phonics - This week we learnt the long vowel sound for /a/ represented by the graphemes ai and ay. Students experienced practice of reading, writing and spelling this grapheme. 

Literacy- Writing - This week on Monday and Tuesday we completed an assessed writing task. Students had to sit for 20 minutes and write a narrative piece. They discussed a picture prompt first where students had interesting ideas and many recognized the appearance of a mummie. They then attempted to write their short story. Students tried their best even though it was a new way of writing for many of them.  

We also read "All Through the Year" by Jane Godwin and Anna Walker. It tracks the different experiences of a surbanan family over the year and how life changes for them. We compared it to last weeks book and discussed differences and similarities between the two pieces of literature.

At Home: Discuss the picture prompt and books we read to see the fascinating ideas students created in writing.

Mathematics - This week, we counted collections of popsicle sticks by using bundling. Focusing on counting how many tens we have. 

At home: Ask your child to count a collection of things. How many tens are there? How many ones? 

Integrated Studies - This week, students learned about the difference between farms and surburbs. What do people do when they live on a farm and how that compare to living in the surburbs. 

At Home: Explore different things in your suburb. Ask students about what shops, parks, and playgrounds they like to visit in their suburb.

Religious Education - This week, students began to explore Ash Wednesday and what is means, in preparation for the start of Lent. We have also started to discuss Sisilia's story, who is a 13 yo girl in Tanzania, who had to walk long distances to collect water every day

Social & Emotional Learning - In social and emotional learning, we learnt about Upstanding and Bystanding. Student discussed what bullying means and the steps to take if encountering a problem.

At Home: Discuss strategies they can use to be upstander.

AUSLAN - This week we worked on the signs as below.

Next week

Reading - We will be learning the long vowel sound for /e/ represented by the graphemes ee (as in bee) and ea (as in beach).

Writing - We will be reading "Seasons" by Auntie Munya Andrews. We will also engage in a picture prompt writing session at the end of the week. 

Mathematics-  We will continue to make bundles of 10, and then compare the number of tens and ones in a number to another one. 

Religious Education - We are exploring continuing to explore both Ash Wednesday and Sisilia's story, linking to our own commitments for Lent.

Social Emotional Learning: Students will be learning about emotions and self-regulation strategies they can use when using different emotions.

Integrated Studies: We are learning about the Wurundjeri season calendar.

Ways to engage with the newsletter:

• Read the weekly book with your child at home (there is often a read aloud on you tube). Talk about what the book's most important ideas are.

• Ask your child to retell the story using their own words.

• Talk about who the characters are, where the story is happening.

• Use the spelling words provided to make up sentences at home or simply a 5 word mini dictation.

• Take the idea around Mathematics and ask students to repeat an activity they did at school, with you.

   

Important Dates

• TERM 1 Key Dates
• Tuesday 17 February - Shrove Tuesday
• Wednesday 18 February - Ash Wednesday   Start of Lent
• Thursday 19 February - Open Afternoon & Family Catch‑Up   4:30pm – 6:30pm
• Monday 9 March - Public Holiday — School Closed

• Thursday 2 April - Holy Thursday — Last Day of Term 1

   

  TERM 2 Key Dates

• Tuesday 21 April — First Day for Students

Contact Us @ Jerusalem

jerusalem@cranbourneeast.catholic.edu.auOR

The Jerusalem Team