Year 1-2
Welcome
Our Specialist Timetable
Tuesday - Art
Thursday - Japanese, STEM and Physical Education
Friday - Bluearth/ My Future Academy alternates with Assembly
What's been happening...
Mother's Day Afternoon
What a wonderful afternoon of pampering was enjoyed by all on Friday May 10th. Thank you to all of the Mums special visitors for coming along to enjoy the festivities.
Ditto's Keep Safe Adventure Program
On Monday May 13th, Ditto's Keep Safe Adventure Program came to visit us. Leanne taught us new songs. Students brought home a booklet about the show.
National Simultaneous Story time
On Tuesday 21st May we joined together in the Mercy Centre to read the 2024 National Simultaneous Story time book, Bowerbird Blues by Aura Parker.
Incursion Dinosaurs... traces of the past
On Friday the 31st of May, Maddie from Museum Victoria came to visit. Maddie shared with us the ways in which palaeontologists have come to understand dinosaurs by studying fossils. She shared stories and information about the Triceratops and a dinosaur found in Australia, Koolasuchus cleelandi. Koolasuchus cleelandi was found in Victoria and was adopted as our official fossil emblem in 2022. Much fun was then to be had, exploring the fossils and dinosaur bones.
Curriculum
Our focus over the past few weeks have been building a repertoire of reasons why it is important to encourage others, and identifying ways to do so.
Literacy
Every morning this Semester, the students have participated in a short, intensive program called Heggerty. The purpose of the sessions is to explicitly explore the phonemic awareness skills: rhyme, phonemic isolation, blending, segmenting, and manipulation. It has become one of our most favourite parts of day. We can see the impact that Heggerty is making for the students. They are applying the skills to their reading and writing.
In reading, we explored the Australian authors Mem Fox and Matt Cosgrove. We investigated the tools authors employ to entice us to read their books. Did you know that Matt Cosgrove starts his Macca the Alpaca books with the same opening sentences?
In writing, we have explored the literary features of a narrative such as the characters, setting, problem and solutions and the importance of events in order. The students are becoming experts at writing super sentences to begin each narrative. They enjoyed publishing their own narrative.
Mathematics
We concluded our 'Place Value' Unit of work.
One of our favourite warm up games was 'Mystery Number.' This game can be played with a partner, or in a small group.
Equipment: 1-100 number chart, 1-120 number chart. Can also be played with larger numbers. For example 101-200 number chart.
How to play: Person one selects a number from 1 to 100. Don't tell anyone.
The partner, or partners, take turns to guess the number by giving clues. For example: Does the number have 5 tens? Person one, replies yes or no. If the number does not have 5 tens, the numbers in the 50s are crossed out. If the number has 5 tens, then all the numbers not containing a 5 in the tens column are crossed out. The partner/s continue to ask clues until 3 numbers are remaining. Then the number can be guessed.
Good luck.
We commenced our next unit, Measurement, by building a bank of words to describe the attributes of familiar objects. We sorted toys into colours, shapes, size, wheels, length and weight. It has been so much fun measuring the weight of objects by hefting, and then using the balance scales. We are looking forwards to measuring the capacity of containers.
Religion
We've concluded our work with Pentecost and we've moved on to our new unit that celebrates our Gifts and how we can share our gifts.
We also have our food drive for St Vincent De Paul coming up on Thursday. Students are encouraged to bring along any amount up to $5.00 so we can go to Burton's and pick out some items we'd like to donate to the needy. We had some great discussion about the types of things that would be most useful for those who don't have a lot in the way of cooking facilities. We enjoyed having a look at the Burton's catalogue and making some shopping lists for our big shop.
Inquiry - Space and Earth Science
On Tuesday the 4th of June the Science Discovery Dome visited us. It was magical to sit underneath the dome as we explored the day and night, and the moon and stars with our educator.
Throughout Inquiry we've been exploring sunrise, sunset, moonrise and moonset. Take a peek at this awesome little iMotion Stop Animation.
Winter uniform
As the weather gets cooler, all students are expected to wear their winter uniform. Students are encouraged to arrive at school in a school jumper. School coats are most welcome. It is warm inside the classroom, yet cold outside, especially before school commences. To help us to return all coats and jumpers to the correct owner, please ensure all removable clothing items are labelled with your child's name.
Upcoming Events
6th June - 1/2 trip to Burtons, leaving at 9:15am (maximum $5 per student)
7th June - Feast of the Sacred Heart, 12.30pm
10th June - King's Birthday Public Holiday
14th June - 1/2R Assembly in the Mercy Centre
21st June - Celebration of Learning
Until next time,
Katherine, Karen, Fiona, Dee and Lisa