Junior Learning News

What's Happening in the F/1 Classroom?

Literacy

In Literacy this fortnight, we have been looking at the long and short /u/ vowel sound. The students have played sorting games where they need to read and identify which sound the /u/ is making. They were also challenged to write a short story where each sentence contained at least one word with the short /u/ sound and another with the long sound. In reading, the students have been focusing on their fluency as they become more confident with their decoding. It's been fantastic to see the use of expression increasing also. We loved having the grade 4/5/6’s in our room on Friday to help us with our reading and writing.

Numeracy

In Maths this week we have focused on our skip counting skills. The children verbally counted by 2’s, 5’s and 10’s. They were then able to use an interactive 100’s chart on the iPad to highlight each number they were counting. This showed them that we count either odd or even numbers when counting by 2’s depending on the starting point, that 5’s and 10’s have a distinct pattern and that 3’s, 4’s and 6’s all have their own pattern when represented visually.

Religion

We have been discussing the Christmas Story as we head towards the Advent season. The children enjoyed being involved in a Godly Play session, where we used Nativity statues and structures to recreate the story of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem. The students loved learning about Mary, Joseph, Jesus and the Wise Men and showed a great level of respect when discussing the true meaning of Christmas. This also generated lots of questions, such as:

How long ago was Jesus born?

Was there Religion before Jesus?

Is Bethlehem still a town?

How did the star appear in the sky?

We will research these over the coming weeks.

Science and Gardening

We loved getting into the garden on Thursday to prepare for Costa’s visit! There was painting of rocks and butterflies to brighten our space, and we also made a welcome sign using gum leaves. The students helped Deb plant flowers and lettuce sprouts, listening carefully as she explained how to plant, water and protect them. We also enjoyed harvesting and eating some of the fruits that are ripening at the moment, especially apricots. The children also enjoyed making fruit roll ups with Jacqui, using strawberries for one batch and mulberries for the other, both of which were grown in our garden.