Year 1/2–Celebrating Learning

What we have been up to: 

We have begun term 3 by flying into our new integrated topic “Up, Up and Away!”. Our Year 1/2 Mainstream students have been learning about different things that fly, including how lift, thrust, drag and weight are considered in designing flying machines. Our students learnt about David Unaipon, his legacy and early helicopter-like designs. Information about our home project to extend on this learning will be sent home at the end of week 3. 

Maths:

We have been focussing on sharing, fractions and transformation in maths. Students have been applying their knowledge of division and multiplication to share collections of objects. We have used number stories to make halves, quarters and eighths with each part having an equal area. Our transformation lessons included looking at reflection and lines of symmetry to design artworks using blocks and colouring. Students have also used flips, slides and turns to make patterns.

English:

Our writing lessons have included learning lots about things that fly - including helicopters, birds, planes, hang gliders and hot air balloons. Students have used this new knowledge to plan, draft, edit and revise information reports about their chosen flyer. 

This term, year 1/2 classes are continuing learning the Little Learners Love Literacy Stage 7.4 sounds. To reinforce their learning, students could be practising their spelling at home. 

7.4 sounds that we have focussed on for weeks 1-2 are /yoo/ sounds: u_e (tune), u (music), ew (new) and eu (Tuesday).

What’s to come in the next two weeks:

Students will be introduced to the design process, exploring the four steps of Ask, Imagine, Create and Improve. Students will create and test different designs for paper helicopters to help put their learning of flight into practice.

Writing moves into looking at procedures, beginning with writing a procedure describing our paper helicopter creations to bring home and explain what we did. They will then get a chance to make a delicious treat and then write the recipe themselves. We are continuing to practise the writer’s process of planning, drafting, revising and editing.

In our phonics sessions in week 3 and 4 we will be exploring the sound and spelling patterns for the /oo/ sound: u_e (rude), ew (blew), ue (blue) and ui (fruit). 

In Maths, we will continue making the connections between fractions and sharing. We will be connecting our knowledge of fractions to develop our understanding of time- specifically reading analogue and digital clocks. At home, you might start discussing how you use clocks in your daily life e.g:

-We have dinner at 6:00pm

-Look, it’s 7am! Time to wake up!

-You have basketball in 30 minutes, time to leave!

As we are now in term 4 and the sun is getting stronger, please remember to pack a hat for your child every day!