Melton West Primary School

Year 1/2 News 


English

Reading 

This term in Reading, students will develop their inferring skills through a variety of fiction and nonfiction texts. They will utilize their background knowledge and textual clues, including visuals and words, to infer characters' emotions and motivations. Additionally, students will explore character traits by investigating new vocabulary to describe characters. They will refine their ability to ask questions while reading, enhancing their comprehension and using inference strategies to find answers. Moreover, students will draw on their prior knowledge and textual clues to make personal connections to the text, relating the story to their own experiences. Finally, they will employ keywords within the text to visualize and create mental images or scenes, deepening their comprehension of the text.

 

 

Writing

To start Term 3, Grade 1/2 students will spend a few weeks looking at Poetry. Students will be shown a variety of different types of poems and learn that poems are used to communicate feelings. They will be given the opportunity to apply their knowledge and create their own poem. For the remainder of the term students will be writing narratives, creating well structured stories with a focus on clear beginning, middle, and end. During this unit, we will focus on character and setting development, as well as realistic problems that link with an appropriate and realistic solution. Students will be introduced to using adjectives and strong verbs to make their stories more interesting. Throughout the term students will continue to practise and develop their grammar skills including capital letters, full stops, past/present tense and punctuation.

 

 

Mathematics

This term in Mathematics the students will be learning a range of skills through Number and Algebra topics. To begin the term, students are learning to identify and apply counting patterns and using this knowledge to support them in solving financial maths problems. From Week 4 onwards, the Number and Algebra focus will move towards learning about Multiplication and Division. In this unit students will be learning to extend on their addition and subtraction skills  to solve problems. They will use number lines, groups and arrays to represent their understanding of strategies to solve multiplication and division problems. They will explore the understanding of equal grouping and equal sharing. 

This term the Grade 1/2 students will be completing a range of topics to develop their Measurement and Geometry skills.  At the beginning of the term students will be learning about Location, throughout this unit the students will be using maps and directional language to give and follow directions. They will then focus on Area to follow on from their learning of 2D shapes last term. During the unit Area, students will use informal units of measure such as hands or counters to estimate and measure the area of common objects. Students will also be comparing the area of objects measured. Towards the end of term, the Measurement and Geometry unit will focus on 3D shapes. During this unit students will identify the features of 3D shapes and use these to identify and sort 3D shapes.

 

 

Inquiry

During Inquiry this term students will explore a unit titled Back When.  By the end of this unit, students will be able to identify and describe the features of places and changes in these, at a local scale, (Melton and surrounding suburbs.)  Students will also identify how people are connected to different places and explain the value of these places to people.  Students will also describe different ways that places can be cared for.

The key concepts studied are Change and Continuity, and the key understanding students will learn is that it is important to recognise and preserve aspects of the past in our local community.

The unit will also focus on key questions such as:

  • How have changes in technology shaped our daily life?
  • What remains of the past are important to the local community? Why?

Science

Welcome to Term 3 Grades 1/ 2

This term in Science, students are focusing on the Physical Science strand where we will be learning how a push and pull force affects how an object moves or changes shape.

Students will observe and model the different ways that objects move and change shape, and explore which forces enable objects to move.  Through investigations and observations, students will explore, test and record the effects of the push, pull and gravity forces through a variety of different experiments.

 

LOTE-AUSLAN

During Term 3 2024 in Auslan, Grade 1-2 students will increase their lessons to twice a week. They will learn about:

  • Deaf Culture 
  • Feelings 
  • Greeting and Questions
  • Around the House 
  • Sea Animals 
  • Days of the Week and Months of the Year 
  • Numbers 1-20
  • Weather 
  • Fruit 
  • Zoo Animals
  • Wh Questions 
  • Handshapes 
  • HOLM+ NMF (Handshapes, Orientation, Location, Movement and Non-Manual Features) 
  • Feelings (extending on previous learning about feelings)
  • About Me 
  • Clothing
  • Medical/Health.

The final week will focus on revision and celebrating our learning. The Auslan signs for these topics are core learning, which will be extended in future Auslan learning. Lessons consist of explicit teaching through videos, supported by activities, games, stories, songs, poems and group practice. Learning Auslan will involve both expressive (signing) and receptive understanding skills (reading back what others’ sign), hence lesson activities continue to develop these skills. At this level, the students will mainly work in the whole group, managed by the teacher and are provided with the opportunity to reflect on their learning together. Students will begin to understand what Auslan communication is about, by watching Deaf adults signing on the videos. At this level the teacher guides and supports the students’ learning, as they also continue to develop their own skills.

 

Art

Welcome to Grade 1 and 2 Art, Term 3, 2024!  This term, students will be exploring the elements of shape and form. They will learn how to apply lines to create a self-portrait and how to use shapes required to create individual facial features. Students will also work on techniques to apply solid colour using different mediums and on monochromatic colours where they will apply one colour but use different shades and values. Grade 1 and 2 will look at the work of professional artists as a reference and guide to help them understand the concepts they will be using. Indigenous artworks will be incorporated into some sessions and a variety of materials will be used to create mixed media artworks. Art activities will involve lots of discussion and experimentation. Looking forward to another wonderful term of Art!

 

P.E

In this term the grade 1/2 students will be focusing on a range of different sporting activities to help continue the development of the fundamental motor skills. Our two main topics of work will be basketball and rugby. Students in the first half of the year began to work on game-based learning to Physical Education and will continue this during term 3 along with skill development in the above-mentioned sports. For this term students will be asked to work on the skills of each sport and attempt to transfer them to game-play. We are aiming to have students be able to pass, dribble, and shoot the basketball and try to apply these skills to game situations. In addition to these specific sport skills the students will continue to work on their running, leaping, dodging, and change of direction skill sets. For the second half of the term, students will focus on the sport of rugby. They will work on their throwing and catching of a rugby ball and try to play in games to help them understand the rules of the game. I can’t wait for a great term with the grade 1/2 students! We have plenty of exciting learning ahead and looking forward to all of it.