Classroom News

Grade 1 & 2

Hello everyone! Here’s an official welcome back to Year 1 & 2! We have noticed the students have come back incredibly settled and ready to learn.

We are starting our Term 1 Inquiry lessons with our “Setting The Scene” unit for 2 weeks and then moving into our Inquiry focus based on the question “How Do I Express My World Through Art?” for the remainder of the term. Feel free to ask your child questions such as: “what are the school values?”, “how do you show these values?” or “how do we show these values differently at school and at home?”.

Please stay tuned for further information on our end of Term expo. We will have an afternoon to show off all the excellent learning we will be doing over Term 1!

Reminders

• Please complete the Parent Teacher Exchange Google form that was sent to you via email in recent days, this is due by Monday 9th February.
• Zip Ups to be brought back in your child’s bag please, if they haven’t been already, so we are able to begin Home Reading as soon as possible.
• Continue daily reading (Readers and Reading Log will be sent home in students bags today in Zip Ups- Reading Logs checked by teacher on Fridays).
• No hat no play! Children need to be wearing their hats outside at recess and lunch
• Library bags and art smocks to be brought back. Thank you to those who have already done this!
• Please label all of your child’s belongings, particularly hats and jumpers.
• A reminder that students are not to be wearing “Smart Watches” at school.

Important Dates for Term 1

Week beginning 9th February - Parent Teacher Exchange (Optional)

6th March - Student Free Day

9th March - Labour Day Public Holiday (NO SCHOOL)

17th March - House Cross Country

19th March - Cultural Festival Welcome Picnic

25th March - School Photo Day

31st March - Chinese Day

2nd April - Last Day of Term 1, 2:30pm finish

Reading, Writing & Spelling

In Reading, we will be using quality mentor texts (related to our Integrated units) to continue building our phonics, fluency and comprehension skills. We will have a big focus this term on vocabulary and literal comprehension, including making connections as we read. Students will be using evidence from text to support their understanding and build their inference skills. We are also continuing on building student’s abilities to work in the Reader’s Workshop model. 

We appreciate the time you take at home to read with your child! We encourage your children to keep their reader books for a couple of nights (or read them twice in a night) in order to practise their fluency and comprehension, as well as their decoding and phonics skills.

Ensure you are asking your children open ended questions at the end such as: 

“(Looking at the front cover) What do you predict will happen in this story?” 

“How do you think the character is feeling?” 

“What connections can you make to this story?” 

(After reading) “Can you summarise the text in a few sentences?” 

(After reading) “What would you change in this text if you wrote it?”

In Writing, we are focusing on embedding the Writing Process with our students - moving from brainstorming(unpacking a seed), to planning/drafting, to editing/revising and publishing. We will be using inspirations from our lives and the mentor text to continue building these skills. Feel free to help your child upload their inspiration pictures to Showbie for use during Writing lessons!

As of next week we will begin our Effective Spelling Inquiry, with students completing 2 x 30 minute sessions per week. This approach teaches spelling through an inquiry approach – where meaning is at the centre of learning. We will also be beginning our Heggerty’s program, a daily phonemic awareness program. These are short lessons which include embedded support and modeling and differentiated opportunities to build alphabet knowledge and letter-sound connections.

Mathematics

This term in Maths we will be covering the following topics: 

• Counting / Skip Counting 
• Place Value 
• Addition & Subtraction 

We have also started off our “Setting the Scene” in Mathematics by exploring what it means to have a “Growth Mindset” in Mathematics. 

We will be moving through explicitly teaching mathematical skills and proficiencies, participating in real life problem-solving activities and developing our fluency through maths games. This term’s learning will provide a really solid foundation for the rest of the year. 

We are looking forward to having an awesome term of learning and fun in Year 1 and 2! 

The Year 1/2 Team