Year 1 News
From Yolanda Andrews, Year 1A teacher
Green Thumbs
The Year 1s have settled into Term 2 with bright smiles and positive attitudes. To their delight, our level has been taken over by dinosaurs! From chicken-sized raptors to the mighty T-Rex, students have been exploring these incredible creatures through engaging stories and fascinating facts. This week, they’ll even create their own dinosaur jokes—look out!
Reading
Students have been developing their fluency and expression. They have been practising reading smoothly—rather than sounding like a robot—and exploring how emphasising certain words can change the meaning of a sentence. Over the next few weeks, they will challenge themselves with “tonsil-tickling” tongue twisters and learn about the importance of pace and delivery when reading aloud, especially when telling jokes.
Please continue to read daily with your child at home and discuss the books together to support their comprehension. This could be a book they bring home from school or one you read with them at night. You might like to ask questions such as:
- Why do you think the character did that?
- How did the character change throughout the story?
What do you think will happen next?
Writing
Students have been focusing on constructing complete sentences. They have learned that a complete sentence includes a subject and a verb to express a full idea. They have also explored different types of end punctuation, such as full stops, exclamation marks, and question marks.
The dinosaur theme has sparked great interest and enthusiasm among the Year 1s, and they have enjoyed expanding their vocabulary with new, topic-specific words. We invite you to take a look at some examples of their fantastic dinosaur facts and detailed labelled diagrams below.
Maths
Year 1 students have been practising their fluency and mental addition and subtraction skills through cooperative maths games in pairs. These games focus on consolidating their knowledge of number facts to 10, as well as mental strategies such as counting on, doubles and near doubles.
It has been wonderful to see the respect and support students show one another. Even when the games are competitive, they engage positively—congratulating the winner and helping each other when they encounter a challenge.
This term, we are excited to recommence our Gardening sessions with Tess and were lucky to enjoy some sunshine as we explored the Molesworth planting boxes last week. Students examined the new seedlings and discussed how the irrigation system works. Each class has also been given the opportunity to grow some seeds, such as Sugar Snap, Broccoli and Pea.
In the coming weeks, students will visit the Errol Street campus to explore the minibeast garden and kitchen garden—and, of course, relocate some snails!
Thank you once again for your continued support and we look forward to sharing more brilliant learning with you next edition.