1/2 A Mainstream 

How exciting to start the second semester with a bang and brighten up these Winter months by celebrating NAIDOC Day with the rest of the school. 1/2A children participated in targeted activities on NAIDOC Day with children from both Steiner and Mainstream Year 1 and Year 2 classes. We learned about traditional dances with Anistasia, wrote and recorded a song with Brett, and had an art activity based on this year's NAIDOC theme ‘celebration ’with Robin. Here’s what some students shared was their favourite activity:

‘Art was really fun because we got to glue things on and colour our own piece of cardboard.’ - Sitara

‘I liked dancing because we danced like all the animals and then made our own Bunjil dance’ - Nour

‘My favourite part of dancing was when we made our own’ - Edie

‘Brett was so great, he came with his own song (not a Spotify song) to teach us and then we recorded it!’ - Tegan

It was also lovely for me to have the opportunity to spend some time talking with you, parents and carers, on Tuesday and Thursday of this week at our parent/teacher conferences. Thank you for making the effort and if you have any more questions or concerns please reach out and we can make another time to catch up.

Maths: We have been exploring multiplication and division with a deep dive into the big ideas that support a stronger understanding of these complex concepts. We started with sharing stories, then partitioning shapes into equal parts and making and using equal groups. We have also started our unit on measuring, starting with ‘length’.  Students have been enjoying comparing and measuring objects in the classroom using uniform, informal units.

English:

Students have finished the Little Learners Love Literacy Stage 7.3 sounds in phonics. These sounds include: oo as in goose, ow as in cow , ou as in loud, oy as in boy, oi as in coin,oo as in oops. Students are also looking at or sounds, including spelling patterns such as sport, shawl, talk, store and autumn. We have now started on to 7.4 sounds in phonics. These sounds include:  a-e as in gate, a as in acorn, ci, cy, ce making the sound ‘s’ and g making the ‘j’ sound when followed by e, i, and y.

We are beginning to work on writing our own narrative texts by learning to unpack other stories that we are reading. Students have been planning to write stories, developing their characters, settings and problems. When we are reading narrative texts, we look for the story’s setting, characters, problem, and resolution. To encourage your child’s craft of creative writing, you can look for these narrative elements in any stories that you read together at home.

Integrated:

So far, we have investigated sources of light and sound around our homes and our school, and conducted experiments to learn how sound and light are made. Questions we have been asking include ‘where does light come from?’, and ‘how are sounds made?’. 

What’s to come in the next two weeks:

• Our new integrated unit is light and sound. To support this, we will be presenting shadow puppet retells which you will be invited to later in the term.

NOTE: There will be a call out for powerful torches so if anyone has one let me know. 

• Book week is week 7 and the assembly on Friday 28th August, so start chatting about favourite characters with your little people.