Grade 1 News

Important Dates & Reminders

All important dates and events are available on our Compass Calendar. Please check the calendar regularly to stay up to date.

Upcoming dates

Every Thursday for weeks 1-5 - Swimming at Paul Sadler Swimland (10:30am-12pm) Grade 1s in the pool from 11am until 11:30am.

17th August - LPS Science Day

24th August - Book Week dress up day (Parade at 2:40pm)

25th August & 26th August - Parent/Teacher Interviews - information to come

1st September - Melbourne Zoo Excursion - information to come

3rd September - Fathers Day Stall

18th September - Footy Dress Up Day and last day of Term 3 (2:30pm dismissal)

Key Information

Students are to bring their take-home bags to school daily to swap books for home.
Icy Poles will be sold outside the senior school Monday & Tuesday lunchtimes

Timetables for Term 3

Please find the updated timetables for Term 3 attached. As students will be participating in swimming during the first five weeks of the term, their specialist classes will take place on different days. Please refer to the appropriate timetable for your child's specialist schedule throughout this period.

STEM NEWS:

STEM Room Donations Needed

We are currently collecting recycled materials for our exciting Term 3 Science Projects in the STEM room. We would greatly appreciate donations of clean items such as plastic water bottles or soft drink bottles, shoe boxes, plastic lids, and cardboard tubing or paper rolls (please no toilet rolls). Donations can be dropped off at the STEM room at any time. Thank you for your continued support in helping provide valuable hands-on learning opportunities for our students.

Learning Reflection

➗Maths

Over the past fortnight, students have been developing their understanding of skip counting and number patterns. We began by learning to skip count forwards and backwards in 2s, using number tracks and hundred charts to recognise the patterns created. Students then applied the same strategies to skip count in 5s and 10s, identifying how the numbers change each time and noticing patterns within the ones and tens places. We have also been learning to identify the rule in a number pattern, such as +2, +5 or +10, and use this rule to continue both increasing and decreasing patterns. Students have practised creating their own skip counting patterns from a given starting number and identifying whether a pattern is increasing or decreasing. We then extended this learning by exploring growing patterns, where students identified how much a pattern increases by each time and created patterns that grow by 2, 5 or 10. Finally, students investigated shrinking patterns, identifying and creating patterns that decrease by 2, 5 or 10. Through these lessons, students have been developing their ability to recognise mathematical rules, predict what comes next and explain how numbers change within a pattern.

Preview: Over the next fortnight, students will begin exploring sharing and grouping, learning how to share collections equally and recognise when groups are equal or unequal.

📖 Literacy

Word Work:

This fortnight, students have been learning the digraphs er, ir and ur. They have explored where each grapheme is commonly found within words and applied this knowledge when reading and writing a variety of words. Students have also been introduced to the trigraphs ear and wor, identifying these letter combinations within words and using them correctly in their writing.

Alongside learning these new spelling patterns, students have continued to revise previously taught graphemes each day, including au, aw, ai, ay and ed. This ongoing revision helps to strengthen students' decoding and encoding skills while building confidence and fluency in reading and writing.

Preview: Next fortnight, students will be continuing to learn and apply, ‘er, ir, ur, wor, ear’. Students will also be introduced to the trigraph ‘air’.

Handwriting

Students have been thoroughly enjoying their handwriting sessions this term. By focusing on writing whole words rather than individual letters, students have shown significant improvement in their letter formation, sizing and placement on the lines. They have continued to practise writing words that match their Sparkle level, while also challenging themselves by copying interesting and unfamiliar ‘weird words’ from the board.

Preview: Students will continue practising their handwriting daily.

Literature:

This fortnight, students have been focusing on the story of Jetty Jumping. Students have been busy planning and writing a narrative similar to Jetty Jumping focusing on being brave and facing your fears. The students did an incredible job on their stories and we are all so proud of them. Students even experimented with our newly learnt vocabulary by using new words in their stories such as, ‘clutching, edge, explode, excitedly’.

Preview: No literature unit next fortnight as we move onto our first extended Knowledge Rich Unit.

Knowledge Rich 🌍

As we wrapped up our First Nations Australians unit, students completed an assessment to demonstrate what they had learnt throughout the topic. They have now begun an exciting new unit on Animals and Habitats. Students have been highly engaged as they have been following the exciting journey of Rattenborough as he travels around the world to teach us about animals and their habitats. Students explored a range of habitats and discovered how animals are specially adapted to survive in the places they call home. We also learnt about the importance of protecting habitats and caring for the animals that depend on them. As we followed Rattenborough’s adventures, students created their very own adventure hats to wear on our journey of discovery! Throughout this unit, students will investigate a variety of habitats and discover how animals have adapted to their environments through their unique features and behaviours.

Preview: Next fortnight, we will continue exploring different habitats and physical features of animals and plants to understand how they survive.

Wellbeing😊

This fortnight in Wellbeing, our Grade 1 students have been focusing on our school values of kindness and respect. Last week, we held our first Circles session for the term, with a focus on kindness. Students discussed and acted out different ways we can show kindness to others and worked together to create a kindness paper chain. Each link featured a drawing showing an act of kindness, which will be proudly displayed in our Circles classroom.

This week, we focused on respect, with a particular focus on showing respect towards First Nations Australians, their culture and Country. We read Respect by Aunty Fay Muir and Sue Lawson and discussed the different ways we can show respect for ourselves, other people and Country. Students then drew a picture demonstrating an example of respect and wrote a sentence explaining their drawing.

Preview: Next fortnight, students will focus on knowing and showing respect as well as respecting others regardless of differences.

Curious Corner

This fortnight in Curious Corner, our students continued to focus on demonstrating our school values while exploring the different activities and learning experiences on offer. Students enjoyed working together, showing respect, kindness and teamwork as they explored, created and learned through play.

❤️ Friendship Day

Here are some photos from our recent Friendship Day.

📚 Homework

Optional Homework for Grade 1

For homework in Grade 1, the expectation is that students will read their take-home book to an adult each day. Every student will choose a new book from their classroom on a daily basis (optional). Students will need to return their previous book before receiving a new book. Here is a link to a folder to access Sparkle at home activities if you wish: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/126BRm52aR9NyaCdEgnCljLC3X0MWqupj

If you are not sure which level your child is on, please ask your child’s teacher.

For those students who are off Sparkle, please encourage them to read any book of their choice at home.

Thank you for reading our newsletter. Please remember, if you have any questions, feel free to contact your child’s teacher.

Grade 1 Teachers,

Catia Anson, Bella Albanese and Jess Kitteringham.