Year One News

Term Four in Year One

Welcome back! We hope everyone had a relaxing break and are ready for our final term of the year! We still have lots of learning and exciting activities ahead for our Grade 1 students.

Literacy

Students will participate in the Little Learners Love Literacy Program, working through Stage 7.4. They will continue to develop their decoding, reading and spelling skills by learning about split digraphs and applying long vowel sounds in both reading and writing. During writing lessons, students will engage with a range of picture books to support them to expand their vocabulary and explore persuasive and narrative writing. Students will also engage with factual books to help them plan, research and draft an information report about a chosen minibeast, as part of their Units of Work. They will develop their sentence structure, grammar, and punctuation by expanding simple sentences to make their writing more detailed. Students will continue to participate in Spelling Mastery lessons, building their spelling skills through explicit instruction and practising phonics patterns, word recognition and accurate spelling. 

Numeracy

This term, students will continue developing their mathematical skills through the Explicit Maths Program. Students will engage in Daily Review tasks that will provide opportunities to revisit familiar skills and consolidate previous learning. Throughout the term, students will explore a range of concepts including statistics and probability, place value, sharing using arrays with remainders, two-digit addition and subtraction with regrouping, missing number problems, volume and reading clocks. Regular Facts on Fire sessions will also help students develop quick and accurate recall of addition facts, supporting their confidence and efficiency when solving mathematical problems. 

Units of Work: Minibeasts

We are excited to be exploring a unit of work about ‘Minibeasts.’ This unit will cover different minibeasts such as insects and arachnids. We will learn about the features of different minibeasts, their life cycles, habitats and diets. Students will learn to summarise facts and use this knowledge to write an information report about a minibeast of their own choosing. They will also have an opportunity to create a model of a minibeast. To extend their learning, the Year One classes will attend the ‘Marvellous Minibeasts’ incursion in Week 3. Students will enjoy a hands-on experience where they can hold and observe a range of minibeasts and examine them closely using microscopes. 

Social Skills (Berry Street, Respectful Relationships and Consent Education)

Through the Respectful Relationships curriculum, students will explore Gender and Identity. The unit will help students to identify and understand the impact that labels make on people in our society. Students will recognise the skills needed to build respectful gender relationships and gender-friendly behaviours that they can apply in the classroom and playground such as being fair to everyone regardless of their gender. In our Consent Education lessons, students will identify actions they can take to support themselves and others in uncomfortable or unsafe situations. Through the Inform and Empower Program, students will learn how to be a ‘Digital Detective’ by exploring the importance of thinking critically about what they see online, including advertisements. Students will continue to begin each day with a Welcome Circle, helping them connect with one another, understand our School Values and prepare for learning. 

We look forward to another wonderful term of learning and appreciate the continued support of our families.

Kind regards,

The Grade One Team