Grade 1 News
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Important Reminders
All important dates and events are on our Compass Calendar, please check the calendar regularly to stay up to date!
Library
Please refer to the timetable below of which day each class is going to the library. Please ensure your child has their library bag so they can borrow weekly.
Please remember to send your child's take home folder to school.
A few upcoming dates
11/2: Curriculum Day
17/2: Pegasus Family Fun Night
25/2: Meet the Teacher night 1
26/2: Meet the Teacher night 2
28/2: House Cross Country
10/3: Labour Day Public Holiday
4/4: Last Day of Term 1
Homework at Lysterfield Primary School
At Lysterfield Primary School our students work incredibly hard during the day. At 3.30pm when they leave, they need time to unwind and have fun. We believe that in order to live a happy and healthy life, it is important to participate in extracurricular activities outside school. We want students to join sports clubs, Scouts, music lessons and art classes as these are important for a child’s overall growth and social connections. We also understand that homework puts a lot of stress on families.
In addition to our beliefs, there is no evidence that homework in a primary school setting has a marked impact on students learning or success. What is proven is that reading daily has a significant impact on a child’s ability to decode and comprehend. As such mandated homework at Lysterfield Primary School is limited to reading daily, including the practising of phonics (letter/sound relationships). Level newsletters will outline the expectations around reading and how teachers will support students with having appropriate texts to read. For some students, that may not be making the expected progress for their year level, it may be beneficial for the teacher and parents to work together to reinforce the learning from the classroom with follow-up work.
We also understand that some students and families would like to practise other skills at home. To support this, at the beginning of each school year, parents will be provided with a set of additional resources that can be used for students to practise other curriculum areas. This work is not mandated and it is up to parents to implement and monitor, staff will not correct this work.
Homework
For homework in Grade 1 the expectation is that students will read their take-home book to an adult each day. Every student will recieve a new book from their classroom on a Monday. 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.
Preview for Learning:
Literacy
This fortnight in Literacy, Grade 1’s began setting up new routines and settling into our literacy topics. Students were introduced to their new workbooks and practised their book organisation. We continued our Word Work program that involves students practicing their decoding skills and spelling on their whiteboards. Students also engaged in ‘fluency reading’ where they collaboratively read their decodable texts to practice their reading fluency with a partner. This fortnight, we were also introduced to our Literature Unit of ‘Starting School’. Through this, students engaged in the texts ‘My Mouth is a Volcano’ and ‘Meesha Makes Friends’ and participated in a range of activities to comprehend these texts through retelling and pair sharing.
In Writing, students continued practising their handwriting skills by tracing and forming letters on the correct lines. During our sentence-level grammar lessons, students learnt about nouns and verbs and practised identifying and including these in sentences. Our other focus was editing sentences to include the correct boundary punctuation. Students learnt about capital letters, full stops, exclamation marks and question marks and when/where to appropriately include these.
Preview of learning:
In the coming weeks, students will continue practising their routines of work work, fluency partner reading and their individual learning goals. Our new Literature topic will be 'Overcoming Challenges' and we will engage in texts to develop our comprehension. In Writing, we will learn about including 'when' and 'where' phrases to expand a simple sentence and what an adjective is.
Numeracy
A warm welcome back to Maths for 2025! This fortnight we have spent quality time setting the expectations and building the routines in maths fluency, maths hooks, maths masters and understanding the structure of our math lessons (number, problem-solving and maths investigations). This has included students comprehending their responsibility in their learning and where they can find the tools to help them achieve their maths goals. We have been practising logging in and out of Essential Assessment, practising our maths masters goals and engaging with the resources in our classroom maths libraries. All of which is paving the way for a successful start for our mathematicians!
Preview of learning: Students will be learning how to make two-digit numbers in multiple ways using concrete materials and place value charts. They will also commence session one of our Investigations Unit on Length, through the exploration of measurement using concrete materials.
Inquiry
Preview of learning: This term, students will be learning how to be a healthy person. This includes physical health, nutrition and mental wellbeing. Students will be completing rotations where they will be exposed to a variety of hands-on activities exploring ways to be healthy.
Wellbeing
Learning in Action
Wellbeing is super important during Head Start! Our Grade 1 students have been learning about a number of concepts that are important at Lysterfield Primary School including the following:
The new school values
The Learner Profile
How to ask questions to make friends
The LPS behaviour curriculum
Preview of learning: Over the next fortnight, students will be learning the basics of friendships, including making friends and being yourself. Additionally, students will be learning how to ask for help when they need it.
From the Grade 1 teachers,
Ms Holmes, Miss Albanese, Mrs Reynolds and Mrs Ryan