Hello Level 1 Families,

Welcome to our latest newsletter instalment!

We hope you have all had a lovely fortnight and have been able to enjoy our lovely spring weather. Well done to all the dads who braved the dads' and kids' camp last weekend. Sounds like you had a wonderful time, albeit a bit wet underfoot.

Market Day was a huge success. We are so proud of how our students managed their money and also their urges to eat all of the lollies and chocolates!

Enjoy the snippets below.

As always, thanks for all you do to support your children at SEPS!

Term 4 Reminders:

Homework is continuing today. Your child should have brought their homework book home today with their new activity sheet. Homework will be due back at school Friday fortnight, thte 14th of November.

We encourage students to jump onto their Mathletics tasks at home if possible. The activities teachers set are to consolidate/revise what we have learnt in class. Log-ins and passwords are in your child's diary.

Thank you for your support with this.

Our classroom doors open at 8:50am everyday. This is to allow for students to enter the classroom, put their drink bottle and diary away, and then complete a 'soft start' at their desk.

We kindly remind parents to say goodbye to their children at the classroom door.

1B and 1C change their take home readers every FRIDAY and 1A will change theirs over each WEDNESDAY. Please remember to pack take home books on your allocated day.

Hats should now be worn until the end of the year.

Friday is still our library day, so please remember to bring library books back each Friday so that students can borrow a new book or two.

Literacy:

Heart words: This coming fortnight we will be focusing on words such as cough, laugh and enough and writing these words into sentences.

This week we focussed on the words below:

Phonemes: Next week will continue to learn about the 'age' phoneme- as in baggage and package.

Morphology: During our core literacy lessons, we will continue learning about prefixes- next week it's the 'ex' prefix as in exterior, ex-student and exit. Happy days!

Writing

Grade 1 students are exploring adjectives and adverbs—the special words that make sentences more descriptive and exciting!

Students are learning how adjectives describe nouns (e.g., the fluffy cat or the tall tree) and how adverbs describe actions (e.g., she ran quickly or he sang loudly). Through explicit teaching, writing prompts, and hands-on activities, students are practising adding these words to their sentences to make their writing come alive.

Last week, our Grade 1 students practiced their recount writing skills by writing about Market Day! They focused on putting events in order, using time words like first, next, and finally, and adding details to make their stories clear and interesting.

Maths:

Did you know that we have started using retrieval practice to start our maths lessons?

We use retrieval practice to help students strengthen their memory and understanding of key maths skills. Retrieval practice means regularly asking students to recall what they’ve learned — for example, counting strategies, number facts, or ways to solve problems.

Each time children remember information, they make those connections in their brain stronger. This helps them recall maths facts more quickly and apply their learning with confidence in new situations. It’s a bit like exercising a muscle — the more they practise recalling what they know, the stronger their mathematical thinking becomes!

This past fortnight we have been focusing on using a bar model when solving multiplication problems. We started by using bar models to represent groups of, then looked at identifying the difference between sharing and grouping, students have used think boards to help record their thinking, then students moved on to solving problems.

Inquiry:

Over the past fortnight we have been learning about the kings and queens of Mesopotamia and their roles in a civilisation. We also learnt about the form of writing called 'cuneiform'. Students even had a chance to write their names in Mesopotamian on clay which they found was a lot more challenging than they first thought!

Level 1 Term 4 Specialist Timetable

1A	1B	1C
Science 10 am Wednesday	Science 2.30 pm Thursday	Science 12.30 pm Thursday
PE 9 am Wednesday	PE 10 am Wednesday	PE 2.30 pm Thursday
Chinese 12.30 pm Thursday	Chinese 9am Wednesday	Chinese 10 am Wednesday
Art 2.30 pm Thursday	Art 12.30 pm Thursday	Art 9 am Wednesday

All the best for a an amazing fortnight,

Suzanne, Robyn, Leon and Marc

Level 1 Teachers

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