Classroom News
Grade 1 & 2
Term 4, Week 2
Welcome back for Term 4!
We are so proud of how well our students have settled back in for our final term and have transitioned easily back into their routines. Whilst Term 4 can be a busy term and we begin to look towards 2025, it’s always such a positive time to look back on the year as a whole and see just how far your children have come! We are so proud of each and every one of them :)
Our Inquiry Unit this term is based around the question How Have Things Changed Over Time? Core teaching will be based on the History curriculum as we look at how (and why) things change, technology has evolved and our local area, mostly focusing on Blackburn Primary School’s History. We can’t wait for our end of unit excursion to Puffing Billy later this term!
Literacy
Our literacy sessions encompass a variety of reading, writing and spelling strategies as we focus on reading fluency, oral language, phonemic awareness, vocabulary building and comprehension.
We will be continuing the following: Readers Workshop, Writers Workshop, Heggarty phonics and Word of the Week. This term we will also be including a Spelling inquiry lesson each week, where we will be focusing on a sound each fortnight and investigating different spelling patterns that make that sound!
Mathematics
This term in Maths we will be covering the following topics: - Fractions- 3D shape and transformations- Mass- Time- Place Value
We will continue to practise fluency through our weekly maths fluency games and embed various problem solving tasks throughout the term.
Reminders
*Continue daily reading and recording on the reading log, See your teacher if you need a new one.
Regular home reading is an important habit to maintain. We encourage children to keep their reader books for a couple of nights (or read them twice in a night) in order to practise their fluency and comprehension, as well as their decoding and phonics skills.
Continue to ask your children open ended questions at the beginning and end, such as:
“(Looking at the front cover) What do you predict will happen in this story?”
“How do you think the character is feeling?”
“What connections can you make to this story?” (to an experience that might be similar or a book or movie that has a similar theme)
(After reading) “Can you summarise the text in a few sentences?”
(After reading) “What would you change in this text if you wrote it?”
*Please check Showbie for Soundwaves homework tasks - these will be posted each Friday and we ask students to bring their Soundwaves books back by Thursday each week for teachers to look over
*Bring charged iPads to school every day
*Don’t forget your library books and bags on your designated library day
*A reminder to check that your child’s items are clearly labelled so lost items can be returned easily. (sometimes names can fade after lots of washing)
Important Dates for Term 4
Wednesday 30th October - F-2 Kaboom Sports Day
Thursday 1st November - School Disco
Monday 4th November - Curriculum Day
Tuesday 5th November - Melbourne Cup Day public holiday
Monday 18th November - last week for library borrowing
Wednesday 20th November - Year 2 & 3 band recruitment night
Friday 22nd November - Step Up #1
Monday 25th November - all library books due back for annual stocktake
Friday 29th November - Step Up #2
Thursday 5th December - parent helper morning tea
Friday 6th December - Step Up #3
Wednesday 11th December - Meet the Teacher & class parties
Thursday 12th December - Year 1/2 Puffing Billy Excursion
Wednesday 18th December - Cheers and Tears assembly
Thursday 19th December - Last Day of Term 4 (1:30pm finish)
Friday 20th December - Curriculum Day
Once again, we thank you all for your continued support of our teaching and learning programs. Let’s have another great term!
The Year 1/2 Team