Year 1

Welcome back to Term 2! We’ve had a fantastic start already and it’s been wonderful to see the enthusiasm and confidence building across all areas of learning. Here’s what we’ll be exploring this term across the learning areas:

Reading and Knowledge Building Unit

Our big focus this term is the first civilisation in the world, Ancient Mesopotamia, and wow—your children are absolutely sinking their teeth into it! We’ve already explored the first four topics and the conversations coming out of the classroom are incredible. The students have been making deep connections and asking thoughtful questions—it's clear they're loving it! We’re combining engaging texts, discussion, vocabulary and comprehension to understand both the history and the big ideas behind early civilisation.

We’ve explored ideas such as what life was like in ancient times, how farming changed everything, the geography of the land between two rivers and what makes a community. Over the rest of the term, we’ll continue learning about city life in Ancient Mesopotamia, the invention of writing, the rise of kings and queens and the creation of laws like Hammurabi’s Code. Students will also explore temples and daily life in early civilisations. Throughout the term, we’ll pause at key points to review and reflect on learning before wrapping up with a review and assessment. The depth of conversation and understanding already happening in the classroom has been so impressive!

Writing

In Writing, we’ve been using our Mesopotamia topic as a springboard to strengthen sentence construction. We’ve been learning how to tell the difference between complete sentences, fragments and run-on sentences, and students have been rearranging scrambled sentences to add in the correct punctuation and capital letters. As the term goes on, they’ll be writing more complex sentence types and using conjunctions like because, but and so to express their ideas clearly and thoughtfully. It’s been fantastic to see their writing becoming more structured and independent.

Phonics

Our Phonics program this term is focused on consolidating the skills and sounds introduced in Level 5 of Decodable Readers Australia. Each lesson includes a mix of phoneme and grapheme review, oral segmenting and blending and lots of decoding and encoding practice. This means students are regularly blending sounds to read words and sentences, while also practising how to spell and write them correctly. We’re also working on decoding and encoding longer, multisyllabic words—something the students are approaching with great confidence. Choral and partner reading, dictation and fun word games are helping bring all these skills together and making our phonics time both engaging and effective. This structured and fun approach is really helping our students become confident and fluent readers.

Maths

In Maths, we’re working on building strong number sense through addition and subtraction using a variety of strategies. Students have been learning how to partition numbers in different ways, using materials and models like MAB blocks, number bonds, tens frames, and part-part-whole diagrams to help them visualise and understand what’s happening when we add and subtract. Later in the term, we’ll be introducing addition and equals symbols as part of writing number sentences. We’ll also be working on reading and writing numbers all the way to 120, collecting and displaying data and learning about position and direction through hands-on activities and games. It’s all about developing confidence and flexibility with numbers!

Wellbeing

Our wellbeing foci this term is all about recognising and building on our personal strengths and learning how to communicate effectively with others. We’ve will be exploring what strengths look like in a school setting—things like kindness, persistence, curiosity and being a good friend—and how we can use these strengths every day. We’re also learning and practising the Kimochi Keys to Communication, which give students simple, practical tools to express their feelings, listen respectfully and respond to others with care. These lessons will continue helping us build a positive classroom environment where everyone feels safe, respected and ready to learn.

I am incredibly proud of the effort and growth I’m already seeing in our Year 1 learners this term. Thank you for your continued support at home—it really does make a difference. We’re looking forward to a fantastic Term 2 filled with learning, exploring and lots of proud moments.