From the Year 1 Classroom

Welcome to Grade 1 2025!

We are very excited to have a wonderful year of learning and fun with your children. It has been a hot start to the school year, and we have been working hard on establishing routines and enjoying getting to know each other. Please ensure that your child has a school hat that is clearly labelled and a drink bottle at school each day. We hope all families have received our weekly timetable outlining activities we do throughout the week.

Literacy

We have hit the ground running with the implementation of InitiaLit through the ‘Magnify’ initiative.

· Magic Words: This program does not include the teaching of the Magic Words, therefore we will not be testing these at school, but please feel free to keep looking over these and spelling them at home. If this is something that you would like to do please contact us to get a copy of the words.

· Tricky Words: Instead of Magic Words, we will be focusing on ‘Tricky Words’ from the InitialLit program. In the back of the Term 1 Take Home Reading Diary there is a list of the tricky words. We are focusing on a small number of words at a time following the program. Last week and this week, we are concentrating on reading and spelling the words ‘said’, ‘her’, ‘are’, ‘was’, ‘you’ and ‘very’. We will let you know each fortnight what ‘Tricky Words’ to concentrate on.

· Home Reading: Take Home Readers were sent home at the end of last week going on the data passed on from their Prep teachers. We will continue to read with and monitor the children’s reading so that they are taking books home that are matched to your child’s reading level.

Maths

We have been playing lots of fun games in Maths for the children to show us their understanding of numbers. We have been practicing counting by 1s, 2s and 5s to 100. Our first unit has been looking at Data, where the children have been very impressive with using tally marks and interpreting pictographs.

Religion – ‘We Can Pray in Different Ways’

In this unit, students will have the opportunity to express and experience different ways of praying and understand that prayer is communicating with God. We look forward to visiting the Church this Friday to join in with the Parish Mass.

Inquiry - ‘Being Healthy, Safe and Active’

As we begin this unit of learning we will learn to describe situations where we are required to make healthy and/or safe decisions. We will look at the children being able to recognise

making safe choices for a variety of situations and describing feelings that can help them recognise safe or unsafe situations.

Looking ahead:

- Grade 1 to attend Parish Mass: 14th February

- Swimming Carnival: 20th of February

- Opening Mass: 28th of February

- Parent Meet and Greet Breakfast: 4th of March

- Ash Wednesday: 5th of March

- School Photos: 6th of March