Year 1

Year 1 November Newsletter

Phonics 

In Phonics, we have learnt more digraphs, including /oo/ (Boo the goose), /le/ (a little poodle), /ow/ (brown cow) and /ou/ (ouch). When we learn a new sound, we always practise the skills of segmenting and blending words. We do this through learning activities like ‘Let’s Spell’ and ‘Let’s Write’, as well as fun games like ‘Super Spelling.’

Writing & Knowledge 

In Writing, we are learning about information reports, including their purpose, structure, and the different language used when writing them. We know that information reports teach us new and exciting information. We will use information reports to present all the interesting facts we are learning about Ancient Egypt. So far, we have learned about where Egypt is and how to locate it on a map, the Nile River, and Ancient Egyptian people and the jobs they had.

This week, we began our new Knowledge topic, ‘Celebrations Around the World’. So far, we have learnt about Holi, Diwali, Eid, the International Festival of the Sahara and Chinese New Year. 

Numeracy

In Numeracy, we have been working on solving vertical addition and subtraction problems. This strategy has made it very easy for the Year 1s to add or subtract numbers with two, three or even four digits! We used grid paper to help us keep the ones, tens, hundreds and thousands columns neat, which made solving tricky sums easy. 

Social Emotional Learning (SEL)

In SEL, we have been continuing our exploration of Gratitude, Empathy, Mindfulness (GEM), and Emotional Literacy. We have been practising identifying feelings, the cause for them and a possible resolution for them. We continued our work on ‘Attitude of Gratitude’, by writing an acrostic poem using the letters of ‘gratitude’ as the first letter. 

Auslan

On Tuesday 3rd December we are very excited to be having Auslan Education Services, our Auslan program provider visit our school.  Each class will have the an opportunity to meet and interact with a Deaf person. The team attending on the day will be a Team Leader, a Deaf team member, and an Interpreter. The Deaf team member will begin by presenting to the children about their life as a Deaf person, followed by signing with the students, and some question time. This will be a valuable incursion as this may be students’ first interaction with a Deaf person and gives them their first look at Deaf culture. Each year level will have a 30-minute session on the day.