Learning News K/1

As this is our last newsletter for the year, I wanted to take a moment to wish you and your family a very merry Christmas, filled with joy, peace, and special moments!

Please continue to read your home readers and tricky words every night.

This is extremely important for your child and their reading and writing progress.

Writing

We are still very busy writing persuasive texts. Here is some of K/1's great work!

Maths

Kindergarten students have finished learning about data and will begin learning about volume starting Week 9. They are learning to describe and compare volumes. Here are a few things that they can practise at home!

• Just by comparing items around the home, your child can begin to understand some basic principles of measurement.
• Sometimes, we can estimate an amount. We don’t always need an exact measure.
• The same object can be measured in different ways.
• A measuring tool needs to be used the same way each time.
• Children need to play with a variety of materials and containers for filling, packing and pouring before they can move to using formal units such as kilograms and grams. They need to understand how things can be packed together to fill a container and which materials are better for packing.

Year 1 students are also starting a unit about volume. They are learning to measure, record, compare and estimate internal volumes (capacities) and volumes using uniform informal units. Here are a few things to focus on at home!

• Gather containers, boxes and packages from the cupboard. Ask your child to put them in some type of order (for example, taller and shorter, holds more and holds less, empty and full, heavier and lighter).
• Gather empty containers of all sizes and a coffee scoop, a plastic cup or the scoop from a box of laundry soap. Have your child use sand in a sandbox or water in the sink to measure and compare the internal volume (capacity) of several containers. Have your child count and compare the number of scoops or cups it takes to fill each container. Ask, “Which container held the most? Which one held the least?"
• Give your child different sized plastic cups and a large plastic container to play with in the bath. Encourage your child to guess how many of each cup will be needed to fill the container.
• Encourage your child to pack away their own toys and books. Talk about how things will fit better depending on the way they are stacked or placed.