Year 1 Term 3 Overviews

Dear Year 1 Families,

Welcome back for Term 3! 

Year 1 students have exhibited their clear understanding of the routines and values at DCC in the first few weeks back and have jumped straight back into their learning.  Below, you will find a brief outline of the core curriculum areas and what your children will be learning about this term. We encourage you to have ongoing conversations with your children about the content below in order to strengthen their learning in the learning space. 

Literacy

Year 1 students continue to take part in daily phonics lessons. They progress to learning common vowel teams and the different ways these sounds can be spelled (for example, or and aw show the same sound, as in short and draw). Students refine their blending skills so they can read and write more challenging and multisyllabic words (such as shortest or drawing). They also apply their understanding of simple morphemes when reading and writing (for example, sorted or sorting). Throughout the term, they build fluency and automaticity at the word level and practise reading sentences with smoothness and expression.

In Reading, students continue to practise a range of strategies to help them comprehend the texts they read. They learn to compare the purpose and features of information, story, and persuasive texts. Students identify punctuation such as full stops, question marks, and exclamation marks to support expressive reading. They make connections between stories and events from their own lives and compare how images contribute to different types of texts. Students use clues in both the text and the illustrations to make inferences about characters and events in narratives.

In Writing, students focus on creating both narrative and persuasive texts. They are exposed to mentor texts that show how authors use different ideas, structures, and word choices to make their writing more persuasive or entertaining. Students are encouraged to use adjectives, adverbs, and action verbs to add meaning and detail to their writing. They develop their understanding that a simple sentence contains a single event or idea, learn the importance of correctly applying full stops and capital letters, and begin experimenting with different types of ending punctuation. Students continue to apply their phonics knowledge and include an increasing range of spelling patterns, high‑frequency words, and morphemes in their writing.

Numeracy

In Numeracy, students will become data investigators by creating questions, collecting and recording information in a variety of ways, including tally marks, bar graphs and pictographs. They will continue to build on our understanding of place value by exploring the use of materials such as MAB blocks to model 2 or 3 digit numbers. Students will develop confidence in representing and solving addition and subtraction problems within 20 by using a variety of strategies and materials, including part-part-whole models, counters, tens frames and number lines. Students will apply their mathematical thinking to real-life situations by solving practical addition and subtraction problems, including simple money transactions. They will explore 2D shapes and 3D objects. At the end of the term, Year 1s will continue to explore measurement using informal units to order objects according to length, mass and capacity.

SEL (Social Emotional Learning)

In SEL, Year 1 students will develop a positive awareness of gender norms and practise respectful and gender friendly behaviours. Students will build on their understanding that they can play and learn with all students, even those who have different opinions, likes and dislikes. Through role plays, stories and whole class discussions, students will begin to develop an appreciation of people’s differences. They will recognise a range of kind behaviours that can be used when making and keeping friends, and identify how we can be safe when playing with our friends.

Environmental Sustainability (Unit of Inquiry) 

In our Unit of Inquiry, “Communities are built to meet the needs of people,” students develop their understanding of the different communities they belong to including their school, local neighbourhood, and wider community. They explore the features of places in their local area and consider how people are connected to and use these spaces. Later in the term, students will take a walking excursion to the local park behind our school. They will use what they observe to design and create their own park, explaining how the features they include meet the needs of the people in their imagined community.

Ways to Help Your Child At Home:

We continue our Home Reading program this term. The expectation is for your child to read their take home book 5 nights a week, answer some comprehension questions that an older family member asks them and record the title, date and a comment in their yellow reading journal. Take home books are for enjoyment and for your child to practise their reading strategies, and are not meant to be a challenging task for your child. Here are some questions you can ask your child as you read together:

• What do you think this book might be about from the cover and title?
• What do you already know about this topic or these characters?
• How do you think the character is feeling right now? What makes you think that?
• What do you think might happen next? Why?
• Can you retell the story in order (beginning, middle, end)?
• What did you learn from this book?
• What was your favourite part and why?
• Did this book remind you of something in your life or another book?
• What message or lesson do you think the author is trying to teach?

This term, students continue to use Wushka and IXL to support literacy and numeracy at home. Log in details for both of these are pasted in their yellow reading journal or have been emailed to you. 

Kind regards,

Year 1 Team